Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I am running out of time so I want to rush on to the following issue. There has been a genuine attempt to protect more junior members of staff from having their names released and so on, yet there are times and occasions when more junior members of staff were aware of key facts and that information may not have been scaled up and so on. The legal note and the preparation of same at that meeting were an example of a situation where key discussions took place, yet that information was not scaled up. Because the director general was present, it was felt that if the director general knew, then all of the senior management team should have known. Where the director general can act in a solo manner, are there procedures in place so that junior staff members will report to their line managers about commitments that are made when they are at meetings? Again that seems to be one of the key failures. If the director general wanted to go rogue - and I am not suggesting that she did - surely there were checks in place where other departmental members, albeit not the senior people, were present at meetings?