Alan Shatter became minister of justice in 2011. Brian Purcell, his secretary general, was judged to be running a grossly incompetent department. Shatter extravagantly complained that the Guerin Report was a breach of his human rights and called on the Human Rights and Equality Commission to investigate the process, and he humiliatingly lost a case challenging the findings of the Guerin Report.

Bashir Otukoya is a PhD candidate at Sutherland School of Law at UCD.