Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

To the best of my knowledge, there was only a small number of those cases. I do not have the information on them but I understand most of them were brought back in under different clauses and they all took effect. It is a number of months since I was briefed on it but, to the best of my knowledge, I do not believe there were any difficulties with them.

I understand all the procedures have been brought in. As Members will recall at that time the case was properly handled and efficiently dealt with but in terms of risk management it was not brought to the attention of the Attorney General. There were seven phases where it should have been brought to his attention but that was only done in the first phase, which was the appointment of the legal counsel.

I would like to be able to say to Deputy Kenny I would be absolutely confident nothing like that could happen again. I was watching, as I am sure was the Deputy, what was happening in the UK overnight when the whole files of a system were put in the post.

See this speech in context