Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

Perhaps if I take it out of the court of law, it would be an easier way to answer the question because I do not want to prejudice anything that is before the court. If I take, for example, my colleagues and I appearing as witnesses at the Committee of Public Accounts, I am not suggesting that I want to separate the two issues entirely but obviously there are witnesses who appear before, for example, committees or courts and different witnesses have different accounts of matters. Some people have a direct evidence account of matters and some have a hearsay account of matters. It is important that the court, the Committee of Public Accounts or any other committee hears all of the evidence in a fair and balanced way. I am not going to second guess here the conduct of the court. What I am saying is that from An Garda Síochána's perspective, to bring it back to the Jobstown issue, it is important that, as members of An Garda Síochána, we are always told professionally to treat witnesses in a fair and reasonable manner-----