Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With respect, I think we are at risk of making this personal. When the Chairman reads out correspondence like that, it only furthers the aims of those who would like to think this is a personal witch-hunt against individuals. That is private correspondence received by the Chairman. He can put it in the nonsense file if he wants to, but we are only helping them to create a perception that it is the Chairman versus them, or the committee versus those two individuals. I do not think it helps that we continue down that path. As I said in my initial remarks, there is no need to elevate this correspondence to a status it does not deserve. There is no need to introduce that private correspondence into the meeting because it has no bearing on what we are doing. All it does is to give the impression that the committee is pursuing something personal, when the Chairman reads it into the record. That is why people then make these claims. We do not want to give them any justification for making such claims.