Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to put one more quote from that meeting. Deputy Clare Daly asked:

Ms West was told on 1 August by a member of Garda management that the Policing Authority was aware of her approaches and so on. Did Ms West find this strange?

Ms West responded:

That was in the context of a management meeting I was part of. It was raised with me as part of a wider management meeting. Obviously, there were not many people present but I was immediately concerned. To be honest I felt quite compromised. I absolutely understand that there are governance structures and that people are very wary of sharing data, as are we. We have been the souls of discretion in protecting data and case-specific information. I felt it was a breach of trust and a compromise. Where we had been trying to raise the issues and do what we felt was right to try to get the truthful message to enable the authority to be able to craft and ask pertinent questions at meetings, not only was our voice not being heard, they kind of told tales on us.

It is hard to reconcile Ms Feehily's statements that it was common knowledge or whatever that they had elevated this issue to the Policing Authority with the comments made. Perhaps I am not characterising that correctly. Is it fair to say from Ms Feehily's previous answers to questions and from her opening statement that it was essentially common knowledge that these issues had been elevated by Ms West and Ms Galligan to the Policing Authority, such was their concern?