Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

If he did not know about it, he had to know about it in 2003. When one health board got explicit legal advice to the effect that the charges were illegal and passed them on to the Department and the other health boards, for some reason it took ten months to get a meeting in the Department of the top chief executives, the top management and the three managers on 16 December 2003. At that meeting this was the main issue discussed.

The Tánaiste, Deputy Harney, may be accused of dumping on the Minister, Deputy Martin, and that may be because she suspects he was responsible for leaking the information about her stopping the authorised officer's inquiry into Ansbacher in her Department. I am sure he was not, but it is good that there is tension between them because she put into the public domain the minutes of this meeting, which show the three Ministers are listed as attending. He says he was not there for part of it, but he got the minutes. He had two Ministers there, one of whom was a Minister for older people.

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