Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I want to move on to another aspect of the work we have been doing. It refers back to the letter of 24 October where we read out the section relating to Mr. Barrett collecting all confidential material and posting it to himself. It suggests the Official Secrets Act. The Commissioner termed that an "interpersonal dispute". We have interrogated this over and back with different people over the last couple of weeks. It certainly looks very different to an interpersonal dispute to me. Mr. Barrett and a number of witnesses before us have agreed that much of this material would not have ended up in the public domain had he not forced that to happen. He was very diligent in how he pursued things. He then ends up being subject to this letter coming from Mr. Culhane and a suggestion that the Official Secrets Act should be applied. That for me is not an interpersonal dispute. Does the Commissioner regret saying that or does she still hold that it is an interpersonal dispute? She formed her opinion of that at the time but it is very important that this ended up in the public domain. We have the potential of a fraud here that has gone to GSOC. Even that would not have happened had this not come into public light or is unlikely to have happened. Does the Commissioner still believe it was an interpersonal dispute?