Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I do not have statistics on the matter. The Deputy is probably making a distinction between court actions in which the Department might be directly involved or other cases before the courts in which the Department might be indirectly involved. I cannot provide figures offhand but I am sure there are very few such court actions, if any at all. However, I will try to find the relevant figures and forward them to the Deputy.

There would be normal court cases involving commercial interests, in which the Department might have an interest in that the cases might refer to legislation or have an influence on some of the agencies under the remit of the Department.

See this speech in context