John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I am not going to delay the meeting with long closing remarks. I think they have answered all the questions. As previous speakers have said, I think it has been a very worthwhile exercise and I cite it as being an example of what might happen before anybody else is appointed as Chairman - to have these conversations first.

The only issue I was unable to deal with - because it is not in the freedom of information requests - was the detail of that trip to London. When we broke for the vote in the Dáil, I made a call to the Department to have that checked out. I do not have that information. I would not have it. It would not be normal for me to have it and I do not have it.

I also checked out a point raised by Deputy Donohoe. I only get notified when the freedom of information request is actually being released. I do not have a notification that the freedom of information request has been submitted to the Department. The other part of the response to the question the Deputy raised is that there are other ways of getting information, such as press queries and that. There would have been a lot of press queries handled in this way as well. The information I gave the committee earlier about the process that involved me is accurate. Therefore, those named in the freedom of information request, including me, would not have got the freedom of information request or known it was made until they actually were told the result of the freedom of information query. That answers that part of it. If I receive the information from the Department before we conclude our next session, I will make it available to the meeting.

In response to Deputy Nolan, in terms of the other specific political issues, as we might call them, which were raised in the latter part of the meeting, I was only responding to Deputy Deasy and giving an overall view on how things might happen or do happen in politics. The question ranged across surprise that this had happened, what was driving this and whether I had gone too far. I do not think I have. All the other questions I answered in the context of Deputy Deasy's query had to be raised because they were specific commentary on my style of chairmanship.

The Vice Chairman asked about assurances.