Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is like waiting for a ticking time-bomb. If Mr. O’Brien could share his clear thinking with the public and the Oireachtas it would pre-empt that and would avoid the potential for confusion, or worse, misleading the public.

The other point I wish to raise is the confusion between the leak, which is an internal matter, which no doubt the commission will pursue, and the question of surveillance. If I understand clearly what Mr. O’Brien said, we can presume that an internal person could not have carried out the surveillance on their own because of what he alluded to in his introductory remarks. He said the fact that only a State agency could have facilitated this type of surveillance makes it is impossible that one person or a number of people acting independently within the organisation could have facilitated the surveillance on their own. Is it correct to say that it would be impossible?