Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

It was also evident from the inquiries I made from my own office when these matters were brought to my attention that, prior to the matters being brought to my attention in 2015, from a perusal of a file that was there from 2008, it was evident that the Department of Justice and Equality had been involved in some discussions, and indeed there had been external attempts to provide advice and to seek advice to have the matters regularised. I was very unclear as to what had been done from 2008 to 2015, and it was very necessary, on the advice of the then chief administrative officer, the deputy commissioner in charge of governance and strategy, that we needed to compile more information and have a fuller and clearer picture on what precisely had been done from 2008 to 2015.