Mr. Frank Daly:

No. I gave the background to the appointment of Mr. Cushnahan and, indeed, Mr. Rowntree at our last session, so I will not repeat it. The point would be that we would have needed something very solid to remove Mr. Cushnahan from the NIAC. There is no doubt at all that it would have caused tensions up North. I know that the deputy First Minister, when he was before the committee recently, indicated that it would not really have been a problem for him, but he was clear in his evidence that he felt that it might have been a problem for others. I think that bears it out. That is not to say that that would have overridden our considerations. I made it clear on the last occasion that if we had known at any stage of Mr. Cushnahan's early involvement in Project Eagle, political sensitivities or not, we would have removed him. Up to the time he resigned in November 2013, we knew absolutely nothing about his alleged activities.