ALAN SHATTER’S RESIGNATION is a lesson for government to “learn to listen to dissenting voices”, Fianna Fáil’s Justice Spokesperson has said.

Niall Collins told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that Taoiseach Enda Kenny would have known that claims made by garda whisteblower Maurice McCabe were of a serious nature.

He noted that the dossier presented to Kenny by Fianna Fáil leader Michael Martin was initially dismissed.

The now former Minister of Justice stepped down yesterday ahead of the Guerin Report, which was commissioned to investigate the reporting of confidential information by McCabe, and had made Shatter feel that it was “his duty” to resign as Justice Minister.

Collins criticised the government to seeking to dismiss McCabe as a “latter-day crank”, despite some believing he was a “very credible witnesses”.

He added that the coalition’s ‘continued votes of confidence in the Minister for Justice’ is a “key point that needs to be addressed”, as well why an explanation as to why the confidential recipient Oliver Connolly was “sacked” and the “premature removal” of the former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan.

He called for a “road map” from government “as to how we’re going to restore this situation to normality”.

‘Inevitable’: Leinster House left shocked by Shatter resignation >