asked the Minister for Justice if the mileage of State cars is logged daily; and if such mileage was recorded for the State cars mentioned in reply to Parliamentary Question No. 72 of 22 October 1980.

: The answer to both parts of the question is "yes".

: Would the Minister of State now tell us why, if the mileage is recorded for the cars in question on the days in question, he will not make that information available to the House?

: It is an intrusion into the private or public lives of Ministers and their families to make that type of information available.

: Is the Minister aware that successive questions by me and other Deputies in relation to the mileage of State cars have been regularly answered in the House until now and that this is the first such question which has not been answered? Could the Minister explain why he believes that the petrol bonanza which went on in Castlebar had anything to do with the private and personal lives of the Ministers and Ministers of State concerned on the day in question?

: I was not aware that Castlebar was the central theme of the Deputy's question.

: While the House may appreciate the Minister's degree of innocence, the date I was particularly interested in, assuming that the question concerned related to the mileage of State cars, was in relation to the day the Taoiseach went to Castlebar.

: A question Deputy?

: I see from my Order Paper that there appears to have been a misprint in relation to the date, which is presumably why the Minister has deflected that aspect of the question. Would the Minister not agree that, of all the parliamentary tactics which he and his Government dislike, the ones they dislike most of all are the ones they forged when they were in Opposition on these benches?

: I do not agree.