Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

This is part of the difficulty. Everybody on the opposite side of the House wants to ignore what the commission's report said about some of the difficulties that have occurred. It said that some were caused because the Department did not put enough resources in place. I have accepted that we were on a learning curve. We tried as best we could. At the time I had only been in the Department for six months. The report states that from the beginning of 2003 we had rectified the problem of resources. People conveniently ignore the fact that the commission stated in its report: "It must be acknowledged that some of the difficulties were caused, or contributed to, by the Committee" [the commission's investigation committee] "in that, for example, there was not sufficient clarity in the direction as to what was sought or insufficient time was being allowed for compliance." That explains why a whole range of irrelevant documents, as Deputy Enright termed them——

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