Alan Kelly

We are the oldest party in the State.

And for a Minister to do it as well.

Done deal.

So you do not use nicknames at all, no?

Hear, hear.

Who are you speaking to?

He is talking to the Gallery.

Let the ruling stand.

We have never been grateful to Fianna Fáil.

You have to hear him first.

That is an interpretation, Ceann Comhairle.

115. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Minister for Justice if he has any concerns about the fact that the latest intake of trainee gardaí are not fully vetted. [12760/25]

As the Minister is aware, the Garda Commissioner informed his Department last November that full vetting would no longer take place prior to trainees entering the college at Templemore. This sent shock waves across many organisations, including the GRA and other representative bodies, because the Garda do the vetting. If gardaí will not be fully vetted before they enter Templemore, how can standar…

This is Comical Ali stuff. The Garda Síochána press office has stated: "... the highest standards for all ... Gardaí will be maintained. Vetting standards for Garda trainees remain the same." They do not remain the same. They are different. Similar to the housing statistics, this was done as a political ploy in order to ensure numbers got bumped up and trainees were taken in last December, which I…

What the Minister said is simply not factually correct. Garda trainees are going into Templemore who have not been vetted to the standard required. That is the bottom line. This was done last November. The Minister is also failing to acknowledge the fact that unattested trainees are often training under supervision but are not fully vetted. The Minister knows that as part of their course they are…

Not when they enter.

They can be on the streets unvetted.

So, standards drop.

Standards drop.

They do.

Give a guarantee.

Trainee-----

They are on the streets unvetted.

I thank my colleague, Deputy Wall, who has been advocating this for some time, as did his dad before him as well, and I acknowledge the work of Family Carers Ireland. This is a unique and neat motion. This is a group that cannot stand up for themselves. I was a bit disappointed in the Minister of State's response and in the Minister's response because we have discussed carers in here quite a bit.…

Yesterday, again, on "Prime Time", journalist Joe Galvin raised the issue of the Israeli company Cellebrite used by the PSNI to crack the phones of journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney. There has been an overlap in personnel between the PSNI from that time and An Garda Síochána since then. It has also been reported that Meta, which owns WhatsApp, announced that up to 100 journalists' phon…