Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If one looks at the number of times we spoke about this particular position, very few conversations took place and these were, by and large, informal conversations. The records will show that it was the Secretary General who then asked for and instructed the Department to develop this concept further and we got a very positive response from other experts in the Department on that concept.

Deputy Brady asked the question, which is a fair enough one, but former Secretary General, Niall Burgess, answered it during this meeting. This related to how it came about that a 12-month contract - which was my understanding - changed and then became a two-year contract and there was a clear reasoning around that. That was supported by the Department, which believed that moving from 12 months to 24 months made sense as to the objectives that we had attached to this role.

On data storage, I am somewhat limited in what I can say around that security breach and I hope that Senator Craughwell will understand that. All I can say is that after that data security breach, I spoke both to my Department and to the Department of Defence at the highest level and got advice and expertise as to how I should proceed and that involved An Garda Síochána and the National Cyber Security Centre. I am not sure what more I could have done on that particular issue. I have not seen individual reports on that but I certainly do not believe that the Garda is likely to release anything.