Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There was no decision to deprioritise this. When I met the officials concerned, we decided the best course of action was to release the witness statement as requested and then the work had to be done to prepare for that release. That is a complex piece of work because this is an investigation that has been ongoing since 1997 and which has a large volume of material appended to it, all of which material had been released to the relevant authorities - the Revenue Commissioners, the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, ODCE, the Moriarty and Mahon tribunals, and the Garda Síochána. All of the evidence had been released but the witness statement had to be assessed to see whether it could be released under the terms of the Companies Acts. There was no deprioritisation of that work. I requested that it would be done and, as the assistant secretary said, it was undertaken during 2013 and 2014. I do not have responsibility for allocating resources but it has been acknowledged that retirements occurred in that time and that delayed the speed at which it was done. That is the context.