Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Ceann Comhairle)

I must interrupt the Deputy. It is not a practice or custom to deal with private matters relating to individual Members of the House. We can deal with issues where the suitability of a person for office can be dealt with by way of a motion, but it has not been a practice allowed by my predecessors to permit the questioning of legitimate transactions by individual Members, unless there are serious grounds for doing so. The Deputy has asked for a statement and it would be wise to keep to the tradition of allowing the Minister to come in and make a statement to clarify any outstanding issues. I ask the Deputy to co-operate in that regard.

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