In the interests of full transparency, will the Taoiseach be in a position to confirm to the House the status and identity of the civil servant who went to the Garda Commissioner on Monday evening?

It was the Secretary General.

Was it the Secretary General of the Taoiseach's Department?

No. The Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality.

I thank the Taoiseach. In regard to this morning's business, the Minister gave a 15 minute statement on that issue but, unfortunately, questions were not provided for in terms of the Standing Orders. It is a great pity there were not questions on that specific issue because, despite Leaders' Questions and two attempts to extract from the Taoiseach why the Attorney General did not see fit over the past number of months to go to the Minister for Justice and Equality-----

We cannot go over all this again.

-----on this issue, he did not answer that question this morning. I asked the Taoiseach if it was not very odd that-----

She had to get all her facts.

She had the facts for four months on the specific case. We know that from the Minister for Justice and Equality.

We are not going into that again on the Order of Business.

Not the scale of it. I said that to Deputy Martin.

I asked a question, which the Taoiseach did not answer, and Deputy Donnelly asked a question, which he did not answer either. There was a very prolonged period of time-----

You cannot ask it on the Order of Business.

-----during which the Attorney did not, in any shape or form, brief the Minister for Justice and Equality. The Taoiseach confirmed that he rang the Attorney General on Sunday.

We have had the discussion-----

The Attorney General was not of a mind last Sunday, by the way, to raise the issue. If we had had questions with the Minister, we could have got an answer to that question.

That is gone. We had questions-----

It was not on that issue that I rang the Attorney General.

Exactly. That is the point. It was not on that.

Taoiseach, please do not encourage him.

That is not why the Taoiseach rang the Attorney General and she was not going to ring him either. I got a different impression from the briefing yesterday.

Deputy, I have to ask you to resume your seat. This is the Order of Business.

We need more time on this issue. That is the point. I ask the Government to provide more time for questions on that specific issue. The Taoiseach mentioned to myself and Deputy Adams yesterday that a senior counsel was approached about this, I think, on Monday. Is there a written report from that senior counsel?

Sorry, that is a matter for-----

If so, could that be made available to us?

I call on the Taoiseach to reply to matters that are in order on the Order of Business. Please adhere to the rules. If Members do not like them, they should change them.

The reason that more time has not been allocated to this is that we are not in possession of all the facts, as I outlined to Deputy Martin. As this information becomes available, of course, we will return to the matter. It will be debated fully here, with as many questions as Members wish to ask. However, one has to be in a position to give answers to questions. I thought it sufficiently important because of the scale of what might be potentially involved here to bring it to the notice of the Cabinet and the House in the way that it has been done.

You cannot go back over that again.

We are drafting the terms of reference for a committee of investigation which can be debated here as well as further issues arising from this. This will not be the last time we will turn to this.