Dempsey hits back over Laffoy crisis

NOEL DEMPSEY came out fighting last night with an extraordinarily robust rebuttal of Ms Justice Mary Laffoy’s criticisms about his handling of the Child Abuse Commission.

In a hard-hitting response that came as a surprise after the Taoiseach's conciliatory comments earlier this week, the minister vigorously denied that the Government had stymied the commission's work or had left its chairperson powerless.

But while he dismissed Ms Justice Laffoy's criticisms one by one in no uncertain fashion, he came under a barrage of criticism from both the opposition and victims for failing to bring forward concrete proposals to help the commission continue its work in the immediate future.