Ms Niamh Sweeney:

On the claim about decisions being driven by financial interests, I understand that I am in a weakened position trying to make this point today because of what was captured on camera but how this individual came to think this way is again part of the wider investigation. I agree it did not fall out of a tree into his lap. There is obviously some gap between what our actual policies and values are and how they were communicated to this individual. If the Deputy looks at the reaction from Retail Excellence Ireland and Core Media, which had questions and which paused their advertising spending, it is very clear that advertisers do not approve of this. In reality, if financial interests were driving all of our decisions we would probably remove a lot more than we do, but I understand that on a day like today it is going to be hard to make that point. I can promise the Deputy that in the three years I have been at the company and the six years Ms Cummiskey has been there, that has never been communicated as a driving ethos. I understand that today is a difficult day on which to make that point.

On the stock market effect, the Deputy probably was not listening to the earnings call - why would he - but one of the points our chief executive officer made on that call was that he had flagged in the third quarter earnings call of last year that we were going to vastly increase the number of people working on safety and security, both reviewers - there are now 7,500, there were 4,500 last year so we have vastly upscaled there - and those who work across different parts of the company but who are exclusively focused on safety and security. He also flagged on this call that those investments are going to have an impact on the overall performance of the company. That was well flagged in advance and he stood over it on this occasion. Again, the ups and downs of the stock market certainly do not dictate how we approach our jobs.