[3][4] His most recent books are Life is a Funny Business (2017), Frenzy and Betrayal: The Anatomy of a Political Assassination (2019) and Cyril's Lottery of Life (2023) He has had occasional opinion articles published in The Irish Times, the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent, the Business Post, the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel.

Frenzy and Betrayal: The Anatomy of a Political Assassination (2019) is his account of controversies that occurred in the period immediately preceding his resignation from the government in May 2014, and the reports on these events.

In 1985, Shatter visited the Soviet Union together with his Fine Gael colleague, Senator Seán 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.

[citation needed] During the 2009 Gaza War, Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh said that Shatter and the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland had exposed the Oireachtas committee on Foreign Affairs to "propaganda, twisted logic and half-truths".

The Sinn Fein TD's attack on Shatter generated controversy, resulting in strong criticism of Ó Snodaigh from members of the ruling coalition and the Israeli embassy.

[14] Shatter opposed the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 to ban the sale of products from Israeli settlements in Ireland.

[citation needed] 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.

[citation needed] Under his guidance, during the Irish Presidency, substantial progress was made at the European Union level in the adoption and development of new legislation and measures across a broad range of Justice and Home Affairs issues.

[citation needed] In June 2011, he apologised for "unfair and inaccurate" comments he made about RTÉ crime correspondent Paul Reynolds after saying he "consistently engages in tabloid sensationalism".

[21][22] When eight former attorneys general criticised the proposed Thirtieth Amendment of the Constitution on Oireachtas inquiries he described their views as "nonsense" and "simply wrong".

A state apology for the survivors' ill-treatment by various religious orders was, as a result of Shatter's engagement with this long-ignored issue, made in the Dail by the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny.

He also 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.

It was welcomed by the Competition Authority and some other bodies, including the Troika to whom the Irish government was obliged to report as a result of the financial and banking collapse.

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

On 3 March 2012, a convicted Garda killer escaped from a low-security open detention centre Loughan House in County Cavan and fled across the border into Northern Ireland.

The jurisdictions of the courts were extended for the first time in 20 years and the maximum civil damages payable for the emotional distress of bereaved relations following a negligent death was increased.

During the financial crises resulting from the banking collapse, when Ireland was under the supervision of the Troika, Shatter successfully fought to ensure the defence forces had adequate finance to maintain a strength of 9,500 and resisted pressure to reduce the numbers to 7,500.

They established that in approximately 2.5% of cases examined, there had been a failure to properly comply with Garda procedures and recommended the introduction of reforms.

When publishing the May 2013 Reports, Shatter acknowledged the role played by a Garda whistle-blower in identifying Garda failures while expressing concern about some inaccurate allegations made that had been widely publicised and fueled some of the political and media controversy relating to the issue, including an inaccurate allegation that 7 individuals had died in traffic accidents because of the cancellation of penalty points.

[citation needed] John Mooney, the journalist who wrote the story, explicitly linked the bugging to GSOC's investigation of Garda handling of the case of Kieran Boylan, the convicted drug-runner who was assisted by gardaí in obtaining a passport, a haulage licence and had a prosecution for drug running terminated in extraordinary circumstances.

A retired High Court Judge, John Cooke was appointed by the government to conduct an independent informal inquiry which he concluded in June 2014.

Initially extracts from the transcript were recited in the Dail by Mick Wallace TD and Leader of the Opposition, Micheál Martin.

[citation needed] In it, Connolly appeared to be repeatedly telling McCabe not to take any steps that would lead to the publication of wrongdoing that he was reporting.

The Commissioner had written to Brian Purcell, the Secretary General of the Justice Department on 10 March 2014, informing him of the discovery of the recordings and action being taken.

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.

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

Almost two years later in December 2020, Taoiseach Michael Martin, who had made allegations against Shatter in a press conference in Leinster House in February 2014 established as false by the O’Higgins Report, in a brief statement, informed the Dáil 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 Shatter redacted together with the Supreme Court judgements.

On the 12th July 2023 Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in another brief statement informed the Dail that "In May 2014 a report of the government established non-statutory inquiry- the Guerin Report-was published and was critical of Mr Shatter’s conduct as Minister for Justice and Equality.

Moreover, in legal proceedings that culminated in a decision of the Supreme Court in February 2019, it was found that Mr Shatter had not been afforded fair procedures in the course of the inquiry.

Both Martin and then Varadkar when making their statements led the Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Green coalition government that assumed office in the spring of 2020.