Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

As a Minister, whenever anyone sent me a draft answer that included the famous statement, "as soon as possible" I rejected it as an answer and asked for a timescale to be provided. Does "as soon as possible" mean three or six months, one, five or ten years or what does it mean? It is a totally meaningless statement in the context of a reply to a Deputy and even as a Minister I always considered it to be so.

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