Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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681. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if his Department has been involved in any court proceedings that involved non-disclosure agreements in the past five years; and if so, if the specific court ruling prevented knowledge of the court proceeding being known and knowledge of the participants to the court proceeding from being made known for each of these agreements. [39864/16]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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As I have previously indicated to the Deputy in my response to PQ No. 804, reference No. 37625 of 29th November last, non-disclosure agreements may be attached to legal cases taken against the Minister for Defence on a case by case basis, depending on various factors. My Department does not hold separate statistics in relation to cases involving non-disclosure agreements and each case file would have to be individually examined in order to ascertain the information requested. As this task would involve inordinate effort, it is not possible to supply you with this information.

The Chief State Solicitor's Office and the State Claims Agency manage and provide legal representation in relation to all cases taken against the Minister for Defence. In cases where the State is considered liable or which involve an apportionment of liability as between the State and the claimant, I am informed that both the State Claims Agency and Chief State Solicitor’s Office approach is to settle such cases expeditiously in so far as it is possible and to do so on reasonable terms. In cases where liability is fully disputed by the State, all necessary resources are applied to defending such claims robustly.