Mr. Simon O'Brien:

I have every confidence in our relationship with the Minister. In meetings with the Minister he completely respects the impartiality and independence of our office and this has nothing to do with me having a lack of trust in the Minister for Justice and Equality of the State. I was very clear when I met him and said it publicly that I regretted the decision not to inform him.

The Deputy is correct that the relationship with the Garda Commissioner is very important. I hope we can get to the other side of this crisis very quickly.

In terms of my decision-making, it was not predicated on whether the threat was at Government level or not. One must just think through what came to my attention following a security sweep which I had not expected to turn up anything. I came in on a Tuesday morning when the paperwork was back to find that these indications were coming together, albeit they were suspicions. We can call one of them an electronic anomaly in a boardroom on one floor of the building and another an electronic anomaly in my office. That feels quite problematic and requires further investigation. It requires us to quickly get to the bottom of what the threats are, where they come from and how to neutralise, manage or otherwise investigate them further to see who might be behind such suspected activity.