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THE MINISTER FOR Justice Alan Shatter has responded to claims made by Independent TD Mick Wallace that he is set to lodge a complaint against him following an appearance on RTÉ’s Prime Time.
The two featured on the show to discuss the garda inquiry into alleged abuse of the penalty points deletion system.
On Thursday night, the Justice Minister alleged that Wallace had himself been cautioned for driving while using a mobile phone, but was the benefit of garda discretion and avoided penalty points as a result.
Wallace, who said he had no idea what Shatter was referring to, this evening insisted he was unaware of the incident, and said a fixed charge notice was never issued to him.
However, in a statement this evening, Shatter upheld this view and said that Wallace was “making a pretence, for political purposes”.
“Deputy Wallace was last night effectively asserting that discretionary consideration afforded to him by An Garda Síochána should not be extended to others. I do not believe such an approach to be either acceptable or credible,” added the Minister.
Shatter added that Deputy Wallace along with “other Dáil colleagues was using confidential information to denigrate and attempt to damage the reputations of a number of private individuals as well as the entire garda force”.
Earlier this evening the TD said he was in the process of lodging a formal complaint with the Standards in Public Office Commission, alleging that Shatter’s comments were in breach of the legally binding code of conduct for people elected to public office.
He said he was also asking the Data Protection Commissioner to investigate “any possible breach of the Data Protection legislation, the basis for the Minister’s allegation, the circumstances surrounding the seeking and providing of any personal data to the Minister in preparation for the Prime Time debate”.
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The ‘who killed your granny’ budget
@John F doe: The “fix Britain after 14 years of the Tories” budget
@Anthony Curran: by killing off the elderly? I know you shinners have a low value on life but this is disgraceful
@John F doe:
A quick Google search will show you just what the tories thought of the elderly…Savage cuts to resources for vulnerable people..
@John F doe: if SF get in this is exactly what will be facing us if not worse.
I wonder will Ireland be loaning money to the U.K.? As the loaned money to us when we were in a very dire state but we still are unfortunately.
@Tommy: we should absolutely help our wonderful nearest and dearest if needs be, they did it for us
@John F doe: dearest?
@Tommy: Economics clearly isn’t your strong suit.
@John F doe: In fairness they provided jobs for the Irish for decades, and still do, not that we need them as much these days.
@Tommy: let’s go Tommy Robinson
@John F doe: And maybe charge them an outlandish rate of interest like they did to us !!
Mad how the Torys can do whatever they like, recklessly destroy the economy BUT Labour oOOoooo ‘pure evil’… politics is truly pathetic
@Thesaltyurchin: the conservatives never launched an attack on the elderly
@John F doe: You’re absolutely dense.
@John F doe: Are you thick?. What age group do you think uses an underfunded NHS more than any other ?
@Ian: I agree
@John F doe: neither have Labour so what on earth are you talking about?
so she can take the blame when it will backfire
For all those ppl in ireland u say “the government can’t get any worse” of course it can get worse
The Budgies won’t be impressed with a tax hike.
Labour a bit like our own, pretend to be sympathetic and be the voice for the working class, yet when in power, o difficult decisions will have it be made. A conservative landslide is likely when they eventually put in a motion of no confidence against this travesty. Stammer the worst Labour PM since Ramsay MacDonald
@Alan: the Tories ran the country in to the ground for over a decade. That Labour would actually try and fix that by taxing the people that can afford it isn’t the “travesty” you think it is. The Tories are trying to paint this budget as crippling the working class but that’s, once again, is an utter lie.
Yep, how do you tax all the profits from State assets sold for a pittance to cronies and then offshored and shielded from view forever?
The once Great Britain is now little Britain a byproduct off Brexit.
What is this talk of Labour having promised not to raise taxes? Let’s be clear what they promised was not to raid Texas, and so far they have honoured that!
have your say