No appetite to uncover whole truth of GSOC bugging

An independent public inquiry is the only means by which the full facts in the GSOC bugging affair can be revealed, writes Mick Wallace

THE 64-page Cooke report, was published by Government last week at 8.45pm. Fifteen minutes later, the headlines of RTÉ’s Nine O’Clock news could only repeat the selective quotes leaked by government sources earlier that day to certain crime journalists.

Half an hour later, the well-versed Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald appeared on Prime Time with a list of reassuring phrases that presenter Miriam O’Callaghan — without any prior opportunity to analyse the report — could not seriously challenge — identical tactics to those employed on the publication of the Garda Inspectorate report into penalty points.