Cabinet as a whole must carry can

Responsibility for the debacle that the Laffoy Commission ended up as, stretches well beyond the responsibility of just Minister for Education Noel Dempsey and rests with the entire Cabinet.

It was their collective responsibility which denied the Commission the resources to fulfil its remit and prevented it from effectively carrying out the functions conferred on it, significantly, by the Oireachtas.

Because of a duplicitous attitude to the Commission, the Cabinet, at its meeting today, has no alternative but to accept totally that it, and it alone, carries the grave onus for its collapse.