Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Secretary General and his officials for attending. I refer to a point made by the cathaoirleach. When Department officials came before the committee on 29 January they cited several times the number of licences issued in the preceding two weeks. The figure given was 110 licences. We were given the impression that we could expect a similar number of licences to be issued in the future. The next time the Department issued more than 100 licences was the week beginning 21 May. That happened to coincide with Department officials coming before this committee again. We find today that the licensing figure for the previous two weeks stands at more than 100. Considering that Mr. Gleeson has said that those figures reflect what happened three weeks previously, will he give an assurance today that the licensing figure for the next three weeks will be more than 100? What specific number of licences will be issued? Will Mr. Gleeson give an assurance that for the rest of this year we will consistently hit the mark of issuing 100 licences per week?