John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if this is the correct time to bring this up. With regard to what we have been dealing with over the past couple of weeks and what transpired on the floor of the Dáil yesterday, an impression was given and picked up by the media that the Committee of Public Accounts had exhausted the options available to it when it came to dealing with the whistleblower and everything around the issue. Any member may correct me if I am wrong. It is important that the public has set out for it what exactly were the options we were given and where we were in that process.

My understanding is that two recommendations were made to us by the legal adviser. The first was characterised as the quickest and cleanest option, which was to interview representatives of the Revenue Commissioners about all these issues. There was a second option, upon which we had not decided. It was that we could apply for a resolution to be laid before the Dáil to deal with these matters. That would have taken an application to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, CPP, but we had not decided on that. There was agreement by all committee members that the decision would not be taken until representatives of the Revenue Commissioners had testified before the committee.

One member, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald, gave the impression on the floor of the Dáil that the Committee of Public Accounts was not in a position to deal with these issues when two recommendations had been made by the legal adviser and we had not definitively decided on the second one. It is important that people understand that and the record is corrected in that regard. It is not the case that we have exhausted the options given to us in this regard. It is important that this is stated today and that the public understands it.