Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Deasy that this is a reasonable question and does have to be clarified. I am curious to know who requested the legal services to send the letter. The Chairman has indicated, as has the clerk, that the opinion was not sought by either of them. It stretches belief that this happened on the basis of a comment. With all the commentary on Irish Water, meters, who can pay and who cannot pay, the Committee of Public Accounts has not been a big part of that media commentary. I would like to know who precisely asked the legal services to send that letter? I find it hard to believe that off their own bat, because they are extremely busy and we know they are under-resourced, they took the initiative themselves. We need to know who asked them to send that piece of unsolicited advice and why.

I share Deputy Ross’s concerns and I have said it before that I have a sense - nothing more than a sense and I cannot prove it - that there has been an attempt to trim the sails of this committee. I do not think that is in anybody’s interests. I want to be proved wrong in that sense. The best way to do that is to get to the bottom of who instructed - not who wrote the advice - that the advice be written and sent to the clerk and an instruction given for all of us to be circulated with it. Can you tell us, Chairman, when we might get answers to those questions?