Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I am answering Deputy Rabbitte. Perhaps some people writing in legal gazettes or magazines, or on the street, thought the case would go against the Attorney General and the DPP but they had won comprehensively in the High Court. To judge from what I have learnt in the past fortnight that was not their view. There is always that risk but they could not be certain. However they did not go in believing they would be beaten. That was not their state of mind. Even if the Attorney General had reported to us and received that note it would not have made such a difference that we would have had draft legislation.

If Deputy Rabbitte is to be consistent in his own arguments he should recall that earlier he said he will be very interested, as will I, to read the decision of the Supreme Court in last Friday's case. This is Wednesday. Deputy Rabbitte then reversed that to say we should have been able to pre-empt the case of yesterday two weeks. It is alright that we should have been able to pre-empt the case of yesterday two weeks but Deputy Rabbitte is, correctly, awaiting the judgment of last Friday's case.

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