Ms Josephine Feehily:

On the PAS question, I do not know what day to day engagement there is between the members of the PAS board and the chief executive. They have their own statutory framework. The Deputy is correct about the make-up of the interview panel in that it is the responsibility of PAS, but I am quite satisfied from my previous engagement - I am around public administration a long time - that we have always managed to engage constructively in terms of how it would run competitions for me in any job I ever had, but the Deputy is correct. It takes place within its framework and under its board.

There are three or four points about the code of ethics. If I could go backwards, and I am not speaking for the authority because as I keep saying, we have not yet considered the content of our two-year report.

I would be surprised if we made the request to which the Deputy referred because it was considered very carefully, thoroughly and deliberately by the authority. I cannot remember if the Tánaiste drew attention to it at the launch but I did so in my opening remarks then where I spoke about the model chosen being one of commitment rather than compliance. I do not think one can force ethics. It is a cultural question. All modern people management and HR practices have moved from a compliance culture to a commitment culture. One must get engagement and commitment. Ethics is about what people do when no one is looking. A discipline code is no good if there is no one looking. The authority made a very conscious decision on this and we engaged widely, receiving many submissions on the matter. We had expert presentations, and a whole day of public meetings with interested bodies.

Lest I be misunderstood, the behaviour that is a breach of the code of ethics in itself may well be a breach of the discipline code. The behaviour is subject to discipline but it is not the notion that a breach of the code is subject to discipline, it is the behaviour which ought to be disciplined and that remains subject to discipline within the disciplinary regulations. That was a deliberate model chosen by the authority. The best example I can give is if someone did something that is unethical, for instance in how he or she engaged with a victim, that in itself is subject to discipline, but not because it is in the code of ethics. It is the behaviour that should be disciplined, rather than the breach of the code. I doubt we will revisit that between now and December. We only published it in January. It is specifically stated on page 5 of the code that we made that choice.

Regarding the Deputy's point about the minutes of the meeting in March, I return to my point about transparency. The fact we publish all our minutes gives an insight into the work that we are delighted to provide. I can confirm that that meeting did lead to a fairly robust engagement which has altered the model. It is no longer a spoke in a broader model, or however we wrote it in the minutes, it is a piece of work in its own right. The embedding plan is now well developed; we have not signed off on it yet. The first instalment of it was the supply of copies and the swearing that happened last Friday for the new recruits. They are approaching the embedding from both ends. There will be bespoke training for the senior team and simultaneously it will be embedded in the training for all new recruits. Gradually, it will be rolled out to groups in the middle over time. I think we have it back on track but I can assure the Deputy that we are very focussed on it.