Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would be more than happy to respond, if I may.

All I and the Department have tried to do is to get committee members documentation that would be useful. I sat for many years on committees and got financial information from Departments that was completely indecipherable and set up in terms of heads rather than programmes. What I wanted to try to ensure was that there was documentation available to the committee that would be useful.

My understanding is the invitation from the committee came in on Thursday last. The officials, the committee members will appreciate, are in the middle of a wide range of different activities at present. The invitation came in on Thursday, which left two working days. The officials dropped everything. They worked through the weekend. I engaged extensively with the document the committee has because the original version that I saw was not a version that I would have liked to have received.

It was not circulated by us this morning. It was circulated by us yesterday evening. Whilst I fully appreciate that the committee quite rightly would want several days, if we only receive an invitation to come in here on a Thursday, the committee will appreciate it takes several days to pull all of this information together.

I am entirely in the committee's hands. If the Chairman would like me to come back later this week or next week, I am more than happy to do that. With the time we had available, the Department worked hard through the weekend to try to get the committee what it wants.

I fully appreciate the comments in terms of the time.