Ms Josephine Feehily:

I am reviewing a piece of paper to make sure I am giving the Deputy the complete answer. Our final paragraph stated that when the Department had had an opportunity to peruse the contents of this, it probably would be appropriate to have the views of the Attorney General and that we were available to discuss it with the Department and with that office, if required. This would not be an unusual process for us. Each year, we write submissions to the Department of Finance and then certain results are achieved. That Department does not usually write back to say it is not doing X. That is not usually the way it works. What it tends to do in a normal year, and I imagine this was no different, is that it feeds into a tax strategy group paper and then the decisions emerge from a process, rather than in an itemised reply. We would not have got a reply in respect of the answers that were positive either. It is not that kind of process. We make our submissions and make known our views, analysis gets done and a finance Bill emerges. Policy decisions get made by the Government and a finance Bill emerges. However, we did try.