The Minister for Justice's State car was travelling at 86 m.p.h. when it was stopped by gardai in Kerry for exceeding the speed limit, Mr O'Donoghue, said. He said this information was contained in an official Garda report supplied to him earlier in the day.

He said the incident happened in the early hours of September 11th. "I have openly made it known that the passengers in the car were my wife and children along with a family friend - all of whom were returning from Dublin, where they had spent the day with me, attending the All-Ireland hurling final."

He acknowledged that this was not the only occasion on which his car was stopped. "But I am saying, in no uncertain terms, that other ministers, in the past, including justice ministers have been stopped and that some of them have certainly been stopped more than once."

Mr O'Donoghue said that driving at an unwarranted speed, no matter who was driving or being driven, was a serious matter, and it was perfectly understandable, when an incident like it came to public notice, that the matter should be the subject of adverse public comment and also the subject of discussion in the House.

He had said that he very much regretted what happened and he did so again in the House.

He sincerely doubted, he said, that there was a party in the House which could claim that none of its ministers ever had the experience of being stopped in their official cars for exceeding the speed limit.

"Ex-ministers in the Opposition benches know this to be true. And many others in the Opposition benches also know it to be true."

He added that he had to have the facts before he went public, and he made no apology for doing the necessary checks.

Mr O'Donoghue said he was saying, "loud and clear, that there isn't a single aspect of what happened on this occasion on which the Opposition can claim moral superiority."

The Minister was replying, on the adjournment, to the Fine Gael spokesman on justice, Mr Alan Shatter, who claimed that it had taken almost 48 hours of "relentless publicity and questioning to force the Minister out into the open and to verbally bludgeon him into acknowledging that it was unacceptable that his ministerial car in the circumstances now known should travel at such excessive speed".

Mr Shatter said that on the previous morning the Minister was refusing to state the destination of the car, to identify the passengers in it, or to explain the circumstances which compelled the car to travel at such a speed.

Describing the Minister's apology as "half-hearted," Mr Shatter said that Mr O'Donoghue's approach to the issue entirely lacked credibility and his professed commitment to zero tolerance now lay in tatters. Mr Shatter said that he was not criticising the Minister for the use by members of his family of the State car allocated to him.