Ms Oonagh McPhillips:

As I said, we were getting a series of parliamentary questions and press queries that assumed a certain amount of knowledge of the Department and we did not know what they regarded. They mainly centred on a meeting and briefings that had taken place. We had no knowledge or record of those and were trying to figure it out. Another parliamentary question and press query came in that mentioned the date of 15 May and, on foot of that, peoples' diaries were searched for 15 May and records and emails were examined and it was in that context that the email surfaced.