Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

Yes. Having received Mr. Howard's letter, we took it very seriously. There are very serious issues raised in it. In order to be sure that we were dealing with it through the appropriate mechanisms, we took legal advices from the law officers as to how to best proceed. As the committee will appreciate, this is an unprecedented situation. We needed to be sure how precisely to deal with it and not to jeopardise any process. We are now in receipt of those advices and Mr. Nugent is dealing with the matter.