Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The answer is that the provisions of this law, obviously, are special to this case. The Official Secrets Act applies to everybody in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. It is part of An Agreed Programme for Government which has not yet been reached and may not be reached, the way things are going. The ambition of the programme is to replace the Official Secrets Act with an entirely new code. Official information under the Official Secrets Act is, literally, anything. It is a summary offence for an official in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to reveal any piece of information of any kind that is in his or her possession. That is a strange law and, luckily, prosecutions are not brought.

It is an offence under the Act for any member of my staff in the Department to say over a pint in the evening what he or she did at work earlier in the day. That is an extraordinary position in which people find themselves. Having said that, since becoming Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, I have been impressed, as I should have expected to be, that I have never once believed any official in my Department had leaked information.