Ms Caroline Dwyer:

That was the first information that came to us via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The statement said there was a chase through the streets of Santa Cruz, back to the hotel where a 30 minute gun battle ensued. This clearly was not the case. I have explained how the police raided the hotel in the middle of the night.

Although we had made complaints a number of times ourselves and through the Irish Government, the Bolivian Government said publicly that it had never received a complaint. When we went to Bolivia in 2014, our main objective was to hand a formal complaint to the Bolivian Government and we made them stamp it in order to show it had been received. We have a stamp on our submission that says it received it. In July 2016, we went back and reiterated the complaint. It is completely incredible that it would turn around in its response and say it had not received a formal complaint.