Mr. John Connaghan:

Mr. Lynch has a long-standing personal commitment. I was in touch with him last night. He regrets that he is not here today. I am grateful to Mr. Woods, who has interrupted a family holiday. He did not step on that plane and came in to the committee today. The committee can decide what to do with this. If it dispenses with any evidence from Mr. Woods as early as possible, I am sure he would be grateful to resume his family holiday. Having spoken to Mr. Lynch last night about his position on this, he advised me of the following. When he was asked to take charge of the serious incident management team, SIMT, that was not a responsibility that included any investigation of the events.