Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for his comments on the talks. I still cannot be certain how this will move into a debate. As the Deputy has said, our difficulty is that we are in different levels of the debate. However, I have tried to brief all the parties over the weekend. I had a long meeting yesterday with the SDLP and we have also talked to the other parties. While we have not given them the documents we have tried to brief them as much as we can. There is not much to say beyond what I said here during Question Time. Depending on what happens in coming days, I will keep the issue of the debate under review. I again confirm I will meet Dr. Paisley, the DUP and Sinn Féin before we have the meeting and then we will see where we move, but I do not expect tomorrow to bring a conclusion to this issue. It will move on from there.

The Cabinet discussed the second matter following the meeting of the Cabinet sub-committee. The Cabinet sub-committee decided we would publish the Goldman Sachs report.

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