Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

No, I only know what I was told, or what I was not told, and I will be accountable for myself. I was appointed on 29 September and I went to the Department on 30 September. I was briefed extensively and so on. This issue arose in the House, for which I have given credit to Deputies Perry and Kenny, and that is how I got to make inquiries of the Attorney General. I have acknowledged that many times and I am sure the Deputies opposite will agree that, as I said earlier, hopefully, I am fair.

I asked for a report to be done on this issue and I brought it to Government on 14 December. It gives me no pleasure to say that it was not accurate — it was not complete and that was the basis on which we made decisions, including the one on retrospection. That is why I appointed Mr. Travers because I learnt the next day that a crucial piece of information was not included in that report. That is why I asked Mr. Travers to carry out his investigation and that is why certain other things happened. It is not a case of somebody being scapegoated for 28 years of maladministration, it is for different issues. Information was withheld from the Government and from me, and that is not acceptable to me. The legal opinions, if available, are opinions of health boards. I understand they were widely available to members of those health boards, both the 1987 opinion of the Eastern Health Board and the subsequent opinion — I understand there were many in between — of the South Eastern Health Board, but they belong to those bodies, subject to legal advice. The relevant parts of those opinions are quoted in the report. In the document we released this morning that went to the Attorney General in October, the background note refers quite extensively to the opinion of the South Eastern Health Board, but subject to legal advice I do not have a difficulty in making the opinions available.

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