John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The meeting today was to deal with the hearing of evidence or rather, a statement from the Northern Ireland committee, to get an overview of its work to date and to get its input into our hearing with NAMA. That was very constructive and the right approach to take. What happened this morning in private session is that we were cautioned as to how we conduct our business. As I said then and repeat now, I believe that every member of this committee has acted responsibly, is aware of Standing Order 163 and understands full well the extent to which we can go with these inquiries. The caution that we received this morning might well have been given to others outside this committee because I consider that to be an effort to frustrate the committee. The releasing of documentation like this, before the hearing today, is nothing short of interference with the work of the committee. We now have those 41 documents as well as an e-mail which has been given to me by the clerk, which I will read:

I am writing on behalf of Martin McGuinness, MLA. Following disclosure from the Department of Finance of papers to the Public Accounts Committee, Martin McGuinness would like to appear before the PAC at the earliest opportunity. Please contact me by return e-mail to arrange same.

We are now faced with these papers being in the public domain and a number of individuals have now asked to come before us. We have been cautioned this morning about that and we need to make a decision on it. However, for today's meeting, we should proceed in the manner in which it was arranged, by having the statement and then by dealing with NAMA. Perhaps after that we can discuss all of what has happened, both overnight and this morning and decide what we are going to do.