Du Plantier murder case – Gerry Adams TD calls for Commission of Investigation

The Sinn Féin leader asked the Taoiseach if he agreed that alleged corrupt activities by the Garda in the Sophie Toscan Du Plantier murder investigation should have been the subject of a Commission of Investigation

DURING Leader’s Questions in the Dáil today, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD called for a Commission of Investigation into alleged corrupt activities by gardaí in the Sophie Toscan Du Plantier murder case and the investigation of prime suspect Ian Bailey.

French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier was battered to death with a rock and a concrete block outside her holiday home near Toormore, Schull, County Cork, and died on 23 December 1996.

Gerry Adams said the difficulty in dealing with ongoing controversies in the administration of justice is that every day there are new revelations such as the taping of prisoners’ phone calls and the latest twist last night in the penalty points debacle.

“There are other distractions,” Gerry Adams said. “While I have no confidence in Minister Shatter, I found it nauseating to listen to former Fianna Fáil Minister Willie O’Dea last night pontificating in a highly vindictive, personalised and inappropriate way about Minister Shatter.”

He added that Fianna Fáil knows, as well as everyone else, “that this phone tapping happened on their watch”.

“These justice issues go back for decades and involved governments made up of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, the Progressive Democrats and Democratic Left.”

Addressing An Taoiseach, the Sinn Féin leader said:

“So the Oireachtas needs to keep a focus on what this is really all about. Yesterday I made the point, and you agreed with me, that the Ian Bailey case is at the root of these problems.

“This has arisen from the investigation into the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

“Ian Bailey’s solicitor wrote to Minister Shatter three times in 2012 about the refusal of the Garda Commissioner to provide information to the Garda Ombudsman.

“Incompetence to one side, this refusal, repeated a number of times, is the real reason for the lack of cohesion in the Government’s response to these scandals.

“Yesterday’s report by the Secretary General of the Department of Justice confirms this.

“He says Department of Justice officials were so preoccupied with possible ramifications about taped calls at Bandon Garda station that they may not have realised the gravity of more widespread taping of phone calls over decades.

The Sinn Féin leader asked the Taoiseach if he agreed that alleged corrupt activities by the Garda in the Sophie Toscan Du Plantier murder investigation should have been the subject of a Commission of Investigation and whether the Government now initiate such a Commission of Investigation or ensure that it is part of the Commission of Investigation being set up into widespread Garda taping of phone calls.”

Gerry Adams reiterated his call for a Commission of Investigation into the matter.