John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I understand. One could make the argument that, for fairness reasons, it might have been the best option. I do not expect Mr. O'Driscoll to comment on that but it might have been the fairer outcome.

I will tell Mr. O'Driscoll where I am going with this. I understand he was not dealing with this in 2002 and some of the officials probably were not around or dealt with any of this. I understand he has to act as the person who is making the case for the Department. I did not realise a review was done in 2005. I do not know what is in that review, but what is interesting for me is finding out today that Mr. Tom Galvin did not involve himself in that review. My guess is that - I have not asked him about it - maybe there was a legal case pending. Maybe there were issues and he was advised not to. The new steering group should take another look at this. The Department probably should take a look at the events surrounding this for the sake of fairness for the individual in question who was put out of business. The pigs cost him €690,000 and the disposal of them €45,000, none of which has been recovered. The Department at least should offer him the opportunity outside of an adversarial court setting to make his case in the new steering group that Mr. O'Driscoll has set up within the Department.