Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I put it again to the Taoiseach that rule 1 of Order 60 states that "If any question as to the validity of any law, having regard to the provisions of the Constitution, shall arise in any action or matter the party having carriage of the proceedings shall forthwith serve notice upon the Attorney General". Is the Taoiseach saying that did not happen in this case?

I ask him to respond to the question put to him by Deputy Kenny in respect of the investigation. Who will carry out this investigation? Is the Taoiseach sheltering behind his original announcement that it will be carried out by a serving official in the Department of Finance? He expects us to give allegiance to an all-party committee to examine the wider issue and he wants to sweep what has happened under the carpet and to leave it to a serving official. That is not acceptable to us. We are anxious to play our part and last week we pleaded for an all-party committee to examine the wider issues. We want to participate in that, but we do not want to sweep under the carpet what happened last week. I want clarity on that.

The Taoiseach did not refer to the expert group. Will an expert group be established? Does the Taoiseach know anything about its terms of reference, who will comprise it and whether it will report to the all-party committee?

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