Vol. 454 No. 1
4 Mrs. Geoghegan-Quinn asked the Taoiseach the date on which the Government accepted the review group report into the Office of the Attorney General; if the report was accepted in part or in total; and the date on which a progress report will be available as per paragraph 4.8 of the review group report of January 1995. [10125/95]
In reply to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 3 and 4 of 7 March 1995 from Deputies O'Dea and Harney, I informed the House that the report of the review group on the Office of the Attorney General was published on 21 February, following approval in principle by the Government to implement its recommendations and to make the necessary additional resources available to the office. I indicated that copies of the report and Government press release thereon had been placed in the Oireachtas Library and made available to Members of both Houses.
The press release clearly indicated that the Government's authorisation to publish the report and their approval, in principle, to the implementation of the recommendations and agreement to make the necessary resources available to the office had been given on 21 February. The press release outlined proposed action to be taken by the Attorney General in respect of organisational changes and stated that he would give progress reports to the Government on these changes after six months, and again after 12 months.
In my detailed statement of 30 May I stated that the report listed 25 recommendations for early implementation and another ten requiring further consideration. Actions in respect of all of the recommendations had been initiated, was completed in respect of some and was well advanced in respect of others. I went on to state that, while I was anxious not to pre-empt the content of the Attorney General's six month report, rapid progress was being achieved in respect of the main recommendations. I arranged on 30 May for a short report to be circulated with my statement which went through the individual recommendation and gave the state of play in respect of each.
May I ask the Taoiseach whether a facility put in place by a previous Attorney General, Mr. Whelehan, that all sensitive cases in relation to sex abuse, whether child sex abuse or otherwise, would be brought to the Attorney General's immediate attention was implemented?
The instructions by the previous Attorney General remain in force and are a requirement imposed on staff in the Attorney General's office.
I understood from the Taoiseach when he spoke here, either last week or the previous week, that in the specific Fr. Brendan Smyth case and the letter from the legal representatives on behalf of the victims, that the facility put in place by Attorney General Whelehan was not operated on that occasion.
There was a problem there. I expressed my concern quite strongly about the fact that that correspondence was not replied to. The instruction given by the previous Attorney General in regard to the handling of sensitive cases and child abuse cases stands and is being implemented by the present Attorney General.
Therefore, the Taoiseach is giving a commitment that in all future cases this facility will be put in place. Will the Taoiseach confirm that the arrangements in place in the Attorney General's office prior to the review group report of January 1995 were that written requests and other correspondence received in the office were sorted, numbered and recorded in a hand-written ledger in the registry and that the registry also obtained, when any further information came in, previous papers? Will the Taoiseach inform the House as to whether that hand-written correspondence was treated in that way in the Smyth case?
As I indicated on the previous occasion when this matter arose, the receipt of the correspondence was recorded in the register in the registry. However, I am not in a position to give the Deputy the information sought about the content of the register other than the fact that the receipt of the correspondence is registered there. I will have to get further information for the Deputy in regard to the content of the register.
Are copies of the register sent to the Attorney General from time to time?
I think the register is available for inspection. I do not know that it is actually supplied on a routine basis but I can get that information for the Deputy if she wishes to have it.
Can the Taoiseach say whether the Attorney General saw the register between the time of taking up office in January and the middle of May?
If the Deputy wants to table a question on that matter I will endeavour to get that information for her. The question I have been asked is a general one about all the recommendations of the review group. The questions I am now being asked are very specific about a particular matter.
I am trying to establish why the procedures in place prior to the review group report were not operated in this case. The registry records the fact that a reply has issued in each of these cases where there is written correspondence. If that facility was put in place — which was there prior to the review group — why was such a reply not recorded? Why did somebody not pick it up? Where was the file? The Taoiseach indicated in the Dáil last week that it was locked in a filing cabinet, a press or a safe. Who gave the instruction that it be locked up? Why was it locked up? To whom did the safe, in which it was locked, belong?
My understanding is that the correspondence which we spent some time discussing last week was registered in the register but it was not replied to. Therefore, no reply was registered in the register because no reply was issued until 9 May. The position is that in the normal course a letter threatening legal proceedings would not actually be dealt with in the Attorney General's office, it would be passed on, having been registered, to the Chief State Solicitor's office to be dealt with there rather than in the Attorney General's office. As I explained in the House last week that did not happen in this case; the letter remained on the desk of a particular official.
Deputy O'Donoghue has been offering for some time. I think we have dealt with this question adequately and I am bringing the matter to a conclusion quite promptly.
Does the Taoiseach feel, in view of the importance of the Fr. Brendan Smyth case, that it was incumbent on the Attorney General to look at the registry?
I do not know whether that is the case. I am not aware of any Minister in a Government Department inspecting the registry of correspondence as a routine matter. I am not sure if any of the Deputies, in the Deputy's party, who had been Ministers would have been familiar with the registry of correspondence in their offices. Certainly I have not inspected the registry of correspondence in the Department of the Taoiseach — I admit that openly — nor have I inspected the registry of correspondence received by my predecessor, Deputy Albert Reynolds. I am not sure I would go along with the inference in the Deputy's question that there is some measure of culpability here. As I explained, in response to Deputy Geoghegan-Quinn, the position in regard to these letters threatening legal proceedings within seven days is that they ought to have been passed to the Chief State Solicitor's office for reply. That did not——
They would have been registered.
——happen in this case because the letter was simply retained on the desk of a particular official. I will obtain details of the precise information normally contained in the register, in other words, whether it contains a note of the receipt of the letter or elaborates and contains the further information to which the Deputy referred.
The Taoiseach has raised an interesting point. Where somebody writes to the Minister for Health, for example, about a matter which does not concern him, will the Taoiseach confirm that it is normal practice for a civil servant to write to the correspondent stating that it is not a matter for the Minister for Health but for the Minister for Education and for a copy of this letter to be kept on file? Why was that not done in this case? When the Attorney General received the file why did he not pick up on the fact that an acknowledgement had not been sent and that a letter had not been forwarded to the solicitor suggesting that while this was not a matter for the Attorney General's office it was a matter for the Chief State Solicitor's office?
Where a letter is misaddressed it is normal practice to refer it to someone else and to issue an acknowledgement stating this. It did not happen in this case because the letter in question remained on the desk of a particular official. It was never associated with or put on the file because, under the direction of the previous Attorney General, it was put in a safe. There was no other ongoing business other than this correspondence which was not replied to.
