asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to a speech by the Irish Ambassador to Washington, reported in The Irish Press on 17 March, in which the ambassador “warned about the effects on American opinion of the Judge Bennett Report which found that persons under interrogation at RUC stations in the six counties had been beaten and ill-treated”; if this speech by the ambassador was approved by the Minister and if the ambassador's statement represents Government reaction to the Bennett Report.

On the question of the Government's reaction to the report of the Committee of Inquiry headed by Judge Bennett on Police Interrogation Procedures in Northern Ireland, I would refer the Deputy to the answers I have given to Questions Nos. 6 and 7. Abuses in the administration of justice in Northern Ireland are, as I have indicated, a source of serious concern in themselves. In addition to our concern for the human rights aspects the Government are concerned that such abuses should not be exploited by the Provisional IRA and their propagandists abroad to justify a campaign of terrorism and violence. Such abuses are therefore a cause of concern not only in themselves but also because of the ambiguous exploitation of the suffering involved.

The ambassador in Washington gave expression to these views, which are central to our policy vis-à-vis the IRA propaganda campaign overseas. He was not making a speech but was replying, and in words other than those quoted by the Deputy, to a journalist's question which specifically asked about the sympathy for the IRA which the Bennett Report disclosures might generate in the United States of America.

May I be pardoned if I ask the Minister whether he answered my question in any respect? Is it Government policy? Was it cleared by the Minister or the Department before it was issued? Those were the questions I asked.

The Deputy asked if the speech by the ambassador was approved by the Minister—I am quoting from the Deputy's question. I said in my reply that the ambassador was not making a speech but was replying to a question.

He did say it?

He did not. I do not know if the Deputy listened to my reply. I clearly stated——

The Minister does not seem to know what he replied.

I do, but if the Deputy does not listen I cannot communicate with him.

I have been listening but it is difficult to hear the Minister and his reply is incomprehensible——

I will repeat it more slowly and hope it will be intelligible.

I am trying to find out what the Minister means because he does not seem to know himself.

He was not making a speech——

Did he say it?

If the Deputy listens he will hear. He was replying——

I know he was not making a speech, but did he say it?

If the Deputy listens he will hear it for the third time. I said: "He was not making a speech but was replying, and in words other than those quoted by the Deputy, to a journalist's question...". He did not say what the Deputy said.

It would have been much simpler to have given that reply. I could have asked then why these unfounded reports, published widely, were not corrected. The words I used are taken from published reports.

I do not want to make a particular comment on this, but if a Minister were to make a public statement each time a newspaper report misunderstood or misrepresented the Government position, he would be busily engaged making public statements.

The Tánaiste and the Taoiseach do little else at times.

Why were the words attributed to our ambassador, who was purportedly speaking in our name, not corrected at the earliest opportunity, and not by a statement from the Minister?

Perhaps because the Deputy's question has been down for some time. If I had made a statement the Deputy might, understandably, have been the first person to say that I had somehow abused the privileges of the House by stating in public what I should have disclosed in answer to his question.

Is it true that such implication, as was contained in the words published and quoted by me in my question, was never uttered by the ambassador either with or without the Minister's approval and never was intended to be conveyed to the public?

Those words were not uttered by the ambassador. I understand that the Deputy was relying on various newspaper reports but they do not represent accurately what the ambassador said in reply to a journalist's question.

He did not say it, he did not mean it, and it was not intended that it should be so.