It will be up to Government to decide "at a later stage" whether to hold a full public inquiry into the circumstances around the death of Shane O'Farrell, according to Minister of State Timmy Dooley.
He was responding to renewed calls for an inquiry which was previously strongly backed by Fianna Fáil's Jim O'Callaghan before he was appointed as Minister for Justice.
Shane O'Farrell was a 23-year-old law graduate when he was killed in a hit-and-run in August 2013.
He was cycling home, near Carrickmacross in Co Monaghan, when he was struck by a car driven by Zigimantas Gridziuska who was, at the time, on bail in relation to number of other incidents - including driving offences.
Although there have been two Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission examinations into the case, the O'Farrell family have campaigned for many years for a public inquiry.
They claim the driver who killed their son should not have been at liberty at the time of Mr O'Farrell's death.
A scoping exercise into the case carried out by retired Judge Gerard Haughton was published in July 2023 and found that an inquiry was unwarranted.
Minister O'Callaghan said this week that he intended to write to the Justice Committee shortly to ask it to look at the recommendations.
Speaking on Saturday with Com Ó Mongáin, Minister Dooley defended the scoping inquiry which he said was more than "a desktop analysis".
However, he accepted that questions remain unanswered, which he hoped they could be resolved by the Justice Committee.
"It's up to the Committee to do the work, under the guidance of the Minister for Justice.
"If he's not happy, and if the Dáil generally isn't happy, it's then open to the Government at a later stage, having gone through that process, to hold a public inquiry," he said.
Mr Dooley added he did not believe cost was a consideration in any decision around an inquiry.
"I certainly never have heard that argument advanced as a reason for not proceeding with the public inquiry. I'd be very doubtful of that," he said.
Sinn Féin's Matt Carthy - who has been a long-time campaigner for a public inquiry - said it has "gone on way too long" and "every mechanism that's been thrown by the Government appears to be a delaying mechanism, and I fear that this is another."
He said the outstanding questions around the case are "so serious that, not only is not appropriate, it's not possible for an Oireachtas Committee to get to the answers."
The Monaghan TD added: "You need to have an inquiry that has full compatibility, has full access to all of the information there is in.
"I've asked the questions in respect of, for example, the garda files on this particular individual, all of them, could they be made available to the justice committee?
"I haven't got a response to that, but I fear what the response would be would be, and that that would be in the negative."
Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore also said a committee process would drag the issue out further.
"How long does this family have to wait for justice? They've been fighting for 10 years," she said.
"Rather than kicking it to a committee, which will mean another year of discussions, or however long, I think there needs to be a public inquiry," she said.
"With the public inquiry, not only will the family get justice, and they'll feel like they've been heard, but actually we do need - as a State - to identify if there are major gaps.
"And there clearly was, I mean, even Timmy said there was major gaps, like, surely as a state, we need to know and understand what those gaps," Ms Whitmore said.
