Ms Josephine Feehily:

This is the first time that I have heard them. Those allegations have not been made to me by the authorised officers or by his Ministers. So the Deputy has me at a bit of a disadvantage in that regard. I do not know what he has to substantiate his view. So I have to be very careful here with what I say because I do not have the dossier. I have a letter, clearly, which his Minister sent to the committee, which the clerk has passed to me, assuring the committee that all the papers in the Minister's possession have come to Revenue. What I do not have is his dossier and I certainly do not have a piece of paper that states that in his view we failed to do something. So the Deputy has me at a disadvantage in that regard.

In my preparation for this meeting, I did have conversations with senior officials who engaged with the authorised officer. It was on that basis that I included in my remarks what I have said. I think they will be quite surprised to hear this. I think one of them indicated to me in the last number of days that they had in the past received some compliments from him in their engagement - in their daily engagement - with him. The only reaction I can make is that I am surprised. I am not aware of that allegation.

I repeat that everything that came to us in those reports the Deputy references from the various Ministers has been examined. It has been followed through wherever it took us. Without going into confidentiality areas, unfortunately I cannot show those files to the authorised officer. I can only assure the Deputy that every document came to us under those Companies Acts provisions. I notice in the Deputy's remarks that he seems to suggest that they should have been published. Well, they are not my reports, so I certainly could not have done. I cannot publish taxpayer information anyway. The reports belong to the Ministers. They are prescribed in company law in terms of what they can do with them. So I am not sure what Revenue could have done by way of publishing such documents - nothing in fact.

Sorry if I-----