Mr. Pat Hynes:

In 2011, when our pension issue was highlighted and published in The Irish Times and the Irish Independent, inviting expressions of interest from gardaí who left the force for any reason before 1 October 1976, the solicitor who, at our behest, published the advertisements, got quite a number of phone calls from retired members. Some were widowers as well. Some letters were received but I do not think there were many. I kept in touch with that solicitor who initiated that inquiry through the national newspapers and she told me that, as the years went by, she had the telephone numbers of the people making the inquiries and they did not reply. We are all over 70 here. The solicitor said to me that presumably those people have gone to their eternal reward. If members of the committee want to ask me more questions, I will take them.