Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

We can expect some meaningful answers on Question Time. I wish to go back to an answer the Taoiseach gave when he described the files at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law reform as having vanished. Can I take it he does not actually mean that, as that is the kind of answer one expects from Paul Daniels? Does the Taoiseach mean that he has not been able to find where the files have gone? Did the Taoiseach actually say that there will be, or there was, a Garda investigation to get to the bottom of this matter and restore some faith in the rule of law? Is the Taoiseach shutting the door on this matter or is he accepting the fact that some files get into the hands of journalists, while others vanish, and that is just the way life is? Does he believe that is acceptable?

If the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights declares that there should be a public inquiry into the bombings, will the Government agree to it or will some conditionalities be put in place? The remembrance fund was established in February 2003 yet no moneys have been paid from it. Can the Taoiseach inform the House what difficulties in administering the fund have been encountered, given that there was to be a meeting in mid-January to administer it but it was postponed? Can the Taoiseach indicate where the postponed meeting and the remembrance fund stand?

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