The Government has rejected a Fine Gael demand for a judicial inquiry into the early release of Philip Sheedy. The controversy surrounding the release led to three resignations, including that of the Supreme Court judge, Mr Hugh O'Flaherty.

The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said there had already been a varied and extensive inquiry process conducted by the most senior member of the judiciary, "and we would need to have some tangible evidence that specific matters were not disclosed by witnesses, and some reason to hope that a further inquiry would throw some further light on the situation, before we could justify the initiation of what would undoubtedly be a very expensive process, which could, indeed, run to millions of pounds, all paid by the taxpayer".

He said nobody could reasonably expect the taxpayer to fund an inquiry on something approaching a wing-and-a-prayer basis that information which eluded previous inquiries would somehow emerge on this occasion.

"There is also, of course, the prospect of court challenges given the type of inquiry envisaged. An expensive and time-consuming process of this kind might still be justified if it were the case that the judges concerned were still serving on the bench but, as we all know, that is not the case."

Mr O'Donoghue said all the facts surrounding the case had been outlined to the House by him on several occasions.

Moving a motion calling for the inquiry in Private Members' time, the Fine Gael spokesman on justice, Mr Alan Shatter, said Sheedy had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and to drunk driving.

Just over a year after the imposition of a sentence, his case was relisted in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court before Judge Cyril Kelly.

"While it was Judge Kelly to whom the pleas of guilty had been made, it was Judge Joseph Matthews who had imposed sentence. Judge Kelly, on November 12th, 1998, ordered that the balance of the sentence imposed on October 20th, 1997, on Philip Sheedy be suspended on Mr Sheedy's undertaking on his own bond of £100 that he would keep the peace and be of good behaviour for a period of three years.

"The initiative to list the Sheedy case before Judge Cyril Kelly did not derive from the actions of the solicitor then acting for Philip Sheedy but was the result of a conversation between the then Supreme Court judge, Hugh O'Flaherty, and the then Dublin county registrar, Mr Michael Quinlan."

Mr Shatter said the circumstances surrounding the early release of Sheedy seriously undermined the integrity of the State's criminal justice system.

The Labour spokesman on justice, Mr Brendan Howlin, supporting the Fine Gael motion, said there was "a plethora of unanswered questions" relating to the matter.

The House will vote on the motion tonight.