Fianna Fáil accuses duo of being caught up in ‘web of spin’

Fianna Fáil has called on Justice Minister Alan Shatter to resign, accusing both him and Enda Kenny of being so caught up in their own spin they were “beginning to meet themselves on the way back”.

Responding to Mr Shatter’s statement to the Dáil that he was only made aware on Monday of the wide-scale Garda system of taping phone calls made in and out of Garda stations — the party’s justice spokes-man, Niall Collins, said yesterday that the justice minister’s version of events was not credible and that he was “completely unfit” for the office he holds.

“It is quite clear that the public has settled on one issue, that the minister is not the man to oversee the administration of justice in this country.

“A catalogue of issues have been allowed to escalate into crises, one after another, and it is never the minister who owns up; there is always somebody else to blame, but that does not wash on this occasion.

“It is clear that the Government and the minister should have been or were in possession of the information, but there was a choice made yesterday to drop it into what we now have,” Mr Collins said.

The Fianna Fáil justice spokesperson said every issue being dealt with by Mr Shatter “turns into a calamity and a crisis” with everybody but the minister having to take the blame.

Mr Collins also questioned the timing of the decision to make the issue of the Garda tapes public on Tuesday, accusing both Mr Shatter and the Taoiseach of engaging in “a web of spin”.

“Why was this just conveniently dropped in there yesterday?

“The minister and the Taoiseach must account for the departure of the Garda commissioner and their treatment of the whistleblowers, yet this issue was dropped into the political mix yesterday when we know it was there for a long time.

“The minister and Taoiseach are getting caught up in their own web of spin and beginning to meet themselves on the way back,” he said.

The Fianna Fáil justice spokesperson said it was difficult to believe that the justice minister could not have been aware of the Garda recordings prior to this week, or that the attorney general and the Department of Justice had not informed the Government of the issue until recently.

“Are we to believe the minister knew about none of these events when, at the same time, a Garda can pull up alongside Deputy Mick Wallace at the Five Lamps, wags his finger at him for allegedly using a mobile phone while driving, and the minister has possession of this information for it to be used inappropriately — as it was — on Prime Time on RTÉ?

“Is the minister asking us to accept that, on the one hand, he acted in the way he has said and, on the other, that he did not know about the recording of telephone conversations at Garda stations?” asked Mr Collins.