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

I want a response within a week as to how many cases that has happened in. I would hazard a guess that it is a fraction of those cases. If that is the case, I want the Department to retract the statement that says, "Before the opening of any facility, the Department engages with local representatives" because it has not happened. As I have said, that has had serious implications not in terms of the local representatives because we are just conduits for information in this regard. If the Department is making statements like that in respect of local representatives when they are sitting in front of the Secretary General telling him it has not happened, I would have to query the assertions that the Department is also engaging in a deliberate way with the health service, with the education services and other public services. If the Secretary General is looking at me straight in the eye, as an elected representative I am telling him that the engagement he claims is happening has not happened. If he is saying essentially that it is, then everything else he is saying about engagement comes under a cloud in my view. I regret saying that because I know that the work we are talking about is very important and is an integral part of Ireland's role in trying to assist, particularly-----