Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We understand it has been a difficult afternoon. Several votes were called in the earlier session and some of us have had to attend the meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts in the meantime. We are being caught all over the place, but I am concerned that the meeting would have to adjourn if the few of us who are here leave.

I have a number of questions, and I thank the witnesses for the ream of documentation sent last week. I will put a straight question to them which they may not be able to answer if it is more to do with policy. Much of this emanates from the Mahon tribunal. In the Mahon report of 2012, serious conclusions were drawn regarding the mobile phone licence and donations to people who were members of the then Government, but since 2012 we have seen very little follow through on that. We were promised that within six weeks of that report each Department would report back to the Taoiseach. Approximately 160 weeks later, there is no sign of that. Is the announcement of this legislation an attempt to cover the fact that nothing happened in the three and a half years since the Mahon report was published? That might be an unfair question to put to the officials.