Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

It is significant that it was only after the Supreme Court decision that the Taoiseach became aware of the nature of his inclusion in the J2 list, even though his legal team had been persistently seeking details from the tribunal of the nature of the allegations being inquired into by it for a considerable period prior to that. I make these observations, not in an effort to disrupt or hinder the work of the tribunal or to attack it, as has been suggested, but merely in an attempt to restore a sense of proportion to the exaggerated and incorrect analysis we have witnessed in the past few weeks and to counter the misinformation and misrepresentation being peddled, mainly by Opposition Members.

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