Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

Even the press release from Deputy O'Shea did not receive any publicity for about ten days. Some media people asked me for information and were satisfied with what I told them. While it got one or two small mentions, the matter was knocking around for weeks. The Government was absolutely clear until some media person picked up the term "slush fund" and suddenly people started running around like headless chickens. The information was in the public domain for weeks. It is nonsense to suggest that we suddenly made a decision last week.