Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

They are very important matters. There are allegations in the report of your meeting that our witness gave false information. That is not true. It is true, the judge said he was a very difficult witness but there is a world of difference between those two things. What happened with our witness is that over four and a half hours of questioning it is clear he became entangled in an argumentative relationship with the defence counsel - that is uncontested and that is what the difficulty refers to. As to the heavy handedness, the judge was not specific as to what she meant by that or what exact aspect of the issue she was referring to. It is relevant that a whole series of judges, State solicitors, etc., have complimented the SIU.