Vol. 238 No. 11
asked the Minister for Justice whether he has received a communication from the Bar Council stating that in its opinion he ought to withdraw statements made by him in relation to Mr. Garrett Cooney; and whether he will make a statement on the matter.
57.
asked the Minister for Justice if his attention has been called to the statement issued by the General Council of the Bar of Ireland with regard to statements reported in the Dáil Debates of 10th December, 1968, as having been made by him concerning a member of the Bar; and (a) why up to the 17th February, 1969, no reply other than the letter of the 10th January, 1969, from his private secretary was sent by him to the Council's letters of the 13th December, 1968, and 8th January, 1969, and (c) having regard to the Council's letter of the 3rd February, 1969, and (c) having regard to the findings of the Council and the opinion expressed in the said letter of the 3rd February, 1969, what action he proposes to take in the matter.
I propose, with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, to take Questions 56 and 57 together.
My involvement in this matter arose from a series of slanderous statements made in the Dáil by Deputy L'Estrange, in relation to a Member of the Government, which were devoid of all truth, which Deputy L'Estrange himself retracted on two occasions but again repeated by innuendo.
Deputy L'Estrange showed a knowledge of the facts of the case in question which could have been got only from the documents submitted to the High Court by the parties in a civil action. These documents were available only to the litigants, their legal advisers and the Court. The action was settled out of Court and the pleadings were not published.
On the 7th March, 1968, the day that the matter was listed for hearing in the High Court, Deputy L'Estrange mentioned the matter in the Dáil and, again on March 13th, when he quoted the High Court reference on documents containing an amended defence of 29th February, 1968, and an amended claim of 5th March and he gave intimate particulars which could not have been obtained otherwise than from those documents. He also gave the actual monetary terms of the settlement of the case which were not even disclosed in the final Court Order striking out the action.
I am satisfied from the information in my possession that Deputy L'Estrange was given access to the documents in question but I am not in a position to state categorically how he received them, that is—whether it was from one of those directly concerned or from a go-between.
As Mr. Cooney, a counsel in the case, has denied that he was involved in any way in Deputy L'Estrange's machinations I accept his denial and offer him my apology for naming him.
I also accept Mr. Cooney's denial that he or his family were associated with the Locke's Distillery case or that he is a brother-in-law of Deputy L'Estrange and I offer him my congratulations.
The Minister is very sarcastic.
As regards Question No. 57 I am in communication with the Bar Council to whom I am sending a copy of this reply.
Is the Minister aware that the debate in the Dáil caused a great deal of uneasiness throughout the country and that the inference drawn by the general public from the discussion here was that a party had received a sum of £3,000 to use his good influence with the members of the Government to secure a planning approval?
Deputy Murphy must relate his remarks to the questions.
It is completely arising from the answer the Minister gave here——
The Chair does not think it arises whatsoever. The Deputy is entitled to put supplementary questions——
This stems from a debate on 10th and 13th December. This arises from a law action arising out of an agreement between two parties that, on payment of £3,000, approval would be given to a particular planning application. It is due to that problem—"problem" is rather a mild way to describe it—that this question has arisen.
The question arose because of specific allegations of corruption made in this House against the former Minister for Local Government. The allegation was made that he was party to taking a bribe for planning permission. This is part of a slanderous campaign carried on from time to time by the Fine Gael Party when they are in the doldrums.
Everybody in the building trade knew about this. One did not have to go to court for that.
I understood the Minister, in the course of a fairly lengthy reply, to say that he accepted Mr. Cooney's word, that he withdrew the allegations and that he apologised to Mr. Cooney.
As far as Mr. Cooney is concerned.
The Minister having done that and having agreed to forward his reply to the Bar Council, I take it that we may all now assume that the Minister accepts fully the findings of the Bar Council that none of his references to Mr. Cooney on the occasion in question was justified——
——or true.
I do not know what this Bar Council have done or what form of investigation—just a moment; I have been asked a question.
They have investigated the matter fully, at the request of the Minister.
I do not know what investigation they have carried out. I have said what I have to say about Mr. Cooney. It is obvious from the particulars I gave to this House that somebody briefed Deputy L'Estrange——
(Cavan): Maybe the plaintiff.
——who must have been somebody who was a party or one of the lawyers in these proceedings. I do not know if they made any investigation to ascertain from Deputy L'Estrange how he got these confidential documents from the counsel or whoever was involved.
(Cavan): When thieves fall out, everything comes out.
They are all on the Deputy's side: 95 per cent of them belong to the Deputy's side.
Would the Minister deal with some of the matters raised in my question here as to his non-reply to the letters issued to him by the Bar Council? It seems to me from the statement made by the Bar Council that the Minister was afforded every opportunity by that body of submitting whatever case he wanted to submit for investigation in the assurance that it would be fully investigated. Would the Minister explain why it is only now, towards the end of February, in response to two Questions tabled here in the Dáil, that the information the Minister has given in his reply has been given when a letter was sent to him by the Bar Council containing their findings as early as 3rd of this month?
I repeat, I do not know what, if any, investigation the Bar Council made which I think they should have made to ascertain how Deputy L'Estrange came into possession of these pleadings; how he got them or who was the go-between. It is their business to do that. I do not know if they have done anything about that. No doubt they will tell us but they have kept very quiet about that side of it which is the real issue in this matter.
I wish to give notice that I propose to raise the subject matter of this question on the Adjournment tonight.
I shall communicate with the Deputy.
