Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will give them ten days. A week is a bit tight. We will ask again about the legal advice and when we get the reply within the fortnight, we can take that up with our own parliamentary legal adviser.

The other issue that has come up a number of times is criticism of this committee, which is fashionable in some quarters and systemic in others. In that context, I am going to ask the secretariat to prepare a briefing note for us that we can approve and then issue. I can think of a few issues on which this committee has been roundly criticised in the past but was upon which it proved to be absolutely correct. During the term of the last Committee of Public Accounts, Maurice McCabe arrived in here with boxes of speeding fines that had been cancelled, adding up to €5 million. That was one of the ingredients that led to where we are now. The committee was attacked right, left and centre for dealing with the Garda Síochána issue but a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General found that the committee was totally within its rights to do that. We also dealt with the so-called Grace case in the south east and were attacked right, left and centre and told it had nothing to do with this committee. Our work on that case has contributed to the establishment of a commission of inquiry. We dealt with the issue of Project Eagle and NAMA. A vague commitment had been made to establish a tribunal or commission of investigation but that had gone off the boil. Our committee's report brought the issue back to the boil and that has now happened. In terms of the Templemore issue, were it not for the work of this committee all that has unfolded would not be in the public domain but we were criticised heavily for doing that. It is important that the committee secretariat would put together a briefing note for us in order that members would have such available to them and be able to say that despite the constant criticism, this committee is dealing successfully with very serious issues.