Mr. Des Carville:

In respect of the Deputy's first comment and the general endorsement of claim - I think there are ten different items - I will pick one of the points made. I am trying to be helpful because we must defend this in due course. I agree with things like the declaration that the each and all of the defendants have a duty to ensure there is a transparent process for accounting for the remuneration. There are other ones where the State is accused of failing to do various things. I disagree absolutely with those. The Department is hugely frustrated because we really want to answer the committee's questions. We have a really good story to tell here and we are hugely frustrated that we cannot communicate this today.

In respect of the second point, as this case evolves, we will continually reassess what the legal position is. Let me try this hypothetical scenario. Supposing the plaintiff was thinking of filing this claim today and had an opportunity to hear what we had to say before this committee today, I would like to think that the plaintiff might not file the case tomorrow because they would be satisfied today. Unfortunately, the cart and horse just got transposed in a rather unfortunate way.