Sheedy report for Cabinet next week

The Government will decide next week whether to release the report of the Chief Justice on the Philip Sheedy affair, the Taoiseach said yesterday.

Mr Ahern said the report by Mr Justice Hamilton was likely to be concluded by early next week and would be discussed at next Wednesday's Cabinet meeting. There was no question of it being released before then.

Opposition TDs have asked that they be briefed on the report as soon as it becomes available to the Government, particularly as the Dail will not be sitting again until April 20th. Mr Ahern said the Government had no fixed view on this request.

He told reporters in Waterford, where he officially opened the annual conference of the Local Authority Members' Association, that when the report was received by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, it would be brought to the Cabinet.

There was no certainty as to when that would be, but it was likely to be in time for Wednesday's Cabinet meeting. "I think we'll discuss its release or non-release at that stage," he said.

"We'd certainly like to have it for next Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, but there's not an agreement on that, so I don't want to be saying that Mr Justice Hamilton has told us that he's giving us the report. It would be helpful, but it's a matter for him to be able to complete it in time."

In a letter to the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights, which met yesterday, Mr O'Donoghue said inquiries into the case had not been concluded but were expected to be finalised soon.

The Department of Justice is carrying out its own inquiry into the controversy which arose last month when it emerged that Sheedy, a Dublin architect, was freed from jail last November having served just one year of a four-year sentence for dangerous driving causing death.