Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

If the Deputy wishes to check the record over the ten years during which we have had the notifications — I understand he does not want to check it, but wishes to characterise this in his usual dramatic way — he will see that the appropriate procedures have been adopted and will continue to be adopted. During the past ten years there have not been press statements in the majority of cases. Any issue of press commentary has been dealt with in the majority of cases on a case by case basis. I do not know whether the Deputy lives in the real world, but intergovernmental communications are not normally the subject of press statements or the type of brouhaha he has suggested should be the norm.

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