Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was also concerned about this case.

As soon as I heard about it, we initiated an investigation straight away. There were multiple interviews, some of them taken under caution. The matter was taken extremely seriously by my Department. The investigation has not been going on for 14 or 15 months. We had a very intensive investigation initially, as soon as we heard about this case. We needed to get to the bottom of it and we did get to the bottom of what was happening. When we completed our investigation, we sent the file then to the Office of the Chief State Solicitor. I instructed that the case would go to the Chief State Solicitor's office because I wanted an opinion from outside the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine as I felt the case merited that. The Chief State Solicitor's office asked a senior counsel to look at the matter. A report was made to us and we had a meeting on the back of that in the Department. I must go on the basis of the legal advice and recommendations I get.

Having said that, we did not leave it at that. Actions have been taken on the back of this and superlevies have been paid. We have undertaken a full audit and got a full report from the processor concerned in terms of how this could have happened and to ensure it cannot happen again. A lot has taken place in a very firm way. This should not have happened. I was very unhappy that it did happen and I made that view very strongly known to everybody concerned. We had a full investigation on what happened, who was involved and how it could have happened. We also referred the matter to the Chief State Solicitor's office for it to take a look at it. From our perspective, we have taken the matter as seriously as we could have and we have taken the appropriate action on the basis of the legal advice received.

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