Meeting of the joint Oireachtas committee on justice and equality; Deputy Secretary General at the Department of Justice Oonagh McPhilips

Readers may recall Tanaiste and former Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald’s resignation last week…

And the resignation of the secretary general of the Department of Justice Noel Waters…

And how the resignations were largely prompted by the emergence of an email, of May 15, 2015, in which Michael Flahive, of the Department of Justice, wrote to Ms Fitzgerald’s private secretary Christopher Quattrociocchi in which he relayed the contents of a phone call he received from Richard Barrett, of the Attorney General’s office, about Sgt Maurice McCabe and the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation…

Department of Justice officials, including deputy secretary general at the department Oonagh McPhilips, are appearing before the Oireachtas justice and equality committee this morning.

Further to this…

RTE reports:

“The most senior civil servant in the Department of Justice has defended the advice given to the former justice minister Frances Fitzgerald in relation to the legal strategy deployed by gardaí before the O’Higgins Commission.

“Oonagh McPhillips told the Oireachtas Justice Committee that the department’s advice to a minister would consistently be that they should not be involved in any way in a case to be presented by another party before a commission of investigation.

“….However, under questioning from Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan about an email sent to Ms Fitzgerald informing her of the adversarial approach being taken by the legal team for the Garda Commissioner in relation to Sergeant Maurice McCabe, Ms McPhillips accepted that the minister would have done nothing wrong if she had discussed this email with her own officials, and expressed her dissatisfaction with the approach.

“She could express that view, but the advice from the department would be that there’s nothing you can do about it”, Ms McPhillips said.”

Watch the proceedings live here