59 Facts About Alan Shatter

Alan Joseph Shatter was born on 14 February 1951 and is an Irish lawyer, author and former Fine Gael politician who served as Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence from 2011 to 2014.

Alan Shatter was a Teachta Dala for the Dublin South constituency from 1981 to 2002 and from 2007 to 2016.

Alan Shatter ended his membership of Fine Gael in early 2018.

Alan Shatter's most recent books are Life is a Funny Business and Frenzy and Betrayal: The Anatomy of a Political Assassination.

Alan Shatter was educated at The High School, Dublin, Trinity College Dublin and the Europa Institute of the University of Amsterdam.

Alan Shatter has lived most of his life in Dublin; he grew up in Rathgar and Rathfarnham and lives now in Ballinteer with his wife, Carol Ann Alan Shatter.

Alan Shatter was a partner in the Dublin law firm Gallagher Alan Shatter.

Alan Shatter is the author of one of the major academic works on Irish family law which advocated substantial constitutional and family law reform.

Alan Shatter is a former chairperson of FLAC, a former chairperson of CARE, an organisation that campaigned for child care and children's legislation reform in the 1970s and a former President of the Irish Council Against Blood Sports.

Alan Shatter is the author of the satirical book Family Planning Irish Style, and the novel Laura.

Alan Shatter was first elected to the Dail at the 1981 general election, and was re-elected at each subsequent election until he lost his seat at the 2002 general election.

Alan Shatter was a member of Dublin County Council from 1979 to 1999 for the Rathfarnham local electoral area.

Alan Shatter's Adoption Act 1991 provided for the recognition for the first time of foreign adoptions in Ireland.

Alan Shatter's bill embraced the precautionary principle prioritizing environmental protection principles in government decision making.

Alan Shatter was a member of the Committee from its foundation in 1992, apart from a brief period in 1993 to 1994, and its chairman from December 1996 to June 1997.

Alan Shatter was for many years a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Law Reform and Defence.

Alan Shatter is a former member of the Health and Children Committee and the Special Committee that considered the wording for a Children's Rights referendum.

In 1985, Alan Shatter visited the Soviet Union together with his Fine Gael colleague, Senator Sean O'Leary, and met with various Jewish refusenik families who had been prevented from emigrating to Israel and were in substantial difficulties with some family members imprisoned and others fired from academic and scientific jobs and forced to engage in menial employment.

The previous year on international human rights day Alan Shatter proposed a Dail motion on the plight of Soviet Jewry which was passed and adopted by Dail Eireann.

In 1983, Alan Shatter was involved in controversy when he defied his party's whip to vote against the inclusion in the Irish constitution of an anti abortion provision.

Alan Shatter was Fine Gael Front Bench Spokesperson on Law Reform ; the Environment ; Labour ; Justice ; Equality and Law Reform ; Health and Children ; Justice, Law Reform and Defence ; Children ; and Justice and Law Reform.

The Sinn Fein TD's attack on Alan Shatter generated controversy, resulting in him being accused of anti-semitism.

In February 2009, during a sitting of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs concerning the Gaza conflict, Alan Shatter clashed verbally with Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Professor of History at the University of Exeter, accusing Pappe of biased scholarship and historical inaccuracies.

On 9 March 2011, Alan Shatter was appointed by the Taoiseach Enda Kenny as both Minister for Justice and Equality and Minister for Defence.

Alan Shatter both devised and piloted Ireland's first ever citizenship ceremony which took place in June 2011 and a new inclusive citizenship oath which he included in his reforming legislation.

Alan Shatter introduced a general rule that save where there was some real complication, all properly made citizenship applications should be processed within a six month period.

Alan Shatter took steps to facilitate an increased number of political refugees being accepted into Ireland and created a special scheme to facilitate relations of Syrian families already resident in Ireland who were either caught up in the civil war in Syria, or in refugee camps elsewhere as a result of the civil war in Syria, to join their families in Ireland.

Alan Shatter had enacted legislation before the end of July 2011 to facilitate access to financial documentation and records held by third parties in investigations into banking scandals and white collar crime.

Alan Shatter steered the legislation through the parliament and it was enacted in 2012.

Alan Shatter had enacted legislation to require the courts to make greater use of community service orders for minor offences and to facilitate the payment of court imposed fines by instalment.

In September 2011, Alan Shatter published the Legal Services Reform Bill to modernise the legal profession, introduce greater competition and tackle the problem of excessive legal costs.

Alan Shatter engaged in an extensive consultative process on the Bill and it was substantially amended and improved as it went through the legislative process.

Alan Shatter refused to amend the provisions designed to reduce legal costs and increase competition and to enable barristers and solicitors work together jointly as court advocates and in partnerships.

The Bill still had to complete its enactment when Alan Shatter resigned in May 2014.

The legislation enacted substantially reflected the draft bill Alan Shatter published, save that the government omitted provisions relating to surrogacy, announcing in September 2014 that the issue would be addressed in separate legislation.

Alan Shatter was the Minister responsible for two amendments to the Constitution of Ireland which were passed in referendums: the Twenty-ninth Amendment in 2011 to allow for the reduction of judges' pay, and the Thirty-third Amendment in 2013 to establish a Court of Appeal.

Alan Shatter implemented substantial reform in the Department of Defence and restructured the Irish Defence Forces.

Alan Shatter is a strong supporter of the Irish Defence Forces participation in international peacekeeping and humanitarian engagements.

Alan Shatter stated that caution should be exercised in assuming all the allegations made were accurate pending the completion of an investigation, expressed concern about individuals being so named and promised to publish the investigation report.

Alan Shatter described some of the decisions made cancelling penalty points as "exotic" and defying common sense.

Alan Shatter published a code of practice to apply in the future and requested an independent report from the Garda Inspectorate.

In March 2014, Alan Shatter announced the governments agreement to implement all of the recommended reforms.

Alan Shatter said that the Gardai had been subjected to "baseless innuendo".

Alan Shatter's report confirmed that Shatter had correctly and truthfully addressed the issue, that there was no evidence that GSOC had been bugged or of any Garda involvement and he criticised the Sunday Times reports.

Alan Shatter informed the Dail that there was no basis for what was alleged by Connolly and that he had never made any such threats.

Until his resignation Alan Shatter continued to be publicly criticised for making alleged threats against McCabe.

Alan Shatter claimed he knew nothing of the letter until after the Commissioner's resignation when some hours later he received a copy of it from the Secretary General of the Justice Department.

Alan Shatter claimed that he had not been informed of the recordings until the evening of 24 March 2014.

The Fennelly Report found that Alan Shatter was truthful on this issue.

The Fennelly Report recorded evidence given by Alan Shatter that contradicted that of Whelan and Kenny in relation to the task given by Kenny to Purcell when visiting the Commissioner on Kenny's direction the night before his premature retirement, 23 March 2014.

Alan Shatter's evidence accorded with that of Purcell and Martin Fraser, Kenny's Secretary General in the Taoiseach's Department.

On 7 May 2014, Alan Shatter resigned as Minister for Justice and Equality and as Minister for Defence following receipt by the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, of the report of Sean Guerin into allegations made by Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

Alan Shatter stated that Guerin's report recorded Guerin had met McCabe on four separate occasions and conducted nineteen hours of interviews with him.

In July 2014, Alan Shatter took court proceedings against Guerin challenging the manner in which he conducted his inquiry.

In October 2016, the Court of Appeal ruled that Alan Shatter had been denied a fair hearing by Guerin and that his rights to natural and constitutional justice had been violated.

Almost 2 years later in December 2020 Taoiseach Michael Martin, in a brief statement, informed the Dail that as a consequence of the Supreme Court decision a revised version of the Guerin Report had been placed in the Oireachtas library with all criticism of Alan Shatter redacted together with the Supreme Court judgements.

Alan Shatter made no mention of Shatter's exoneration by the O'Higgins Report in May 2016 and failed to apologise to Shatter for the wrong done to him.

Alan Shatter contested the redrawn constituency of Dublin Rathdown at the 2016 general election.

Alan Shatter was critical of the conduct of Fine Gael's national campaign and the role in it of Enda Kenny.