asked the Minister for Finance if he has received a recent letter from the Eastern Regional Tourism Organisation Limited regarding the opening of Newgrange Tumulus on the 14th June, 1968; and what are the contents of this letter.
Ceisteann—Questions. Oral Answers. - Opening of Newgrange Tumulus.
13.
I received a letter from the chairman of the Eastern Regional Tourism Organisation Ltd. which serves to confirm that misunderstanding between junior officials of his organisation and of the Board of Works led to an inadequate list of guests for the opening arranged by the tourism organisation. If I had been asked to supply a list of persons to be invited I would certainly have followed my usual custom of including all public persons concerned.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary not agree that either a junior or senior official of the Office of Public Works made a bad mistake or deliberately provided a list to the Eastern Regional Tourism Organisation and asked them to send out that list and will he not agree that this was a particularly mean trick to play on a junior official? Will he not agree that in this, the third round, I have won by a knockout?
I would agree with nothing of the kind but what has become clearly evident in this series of rather futile questions by Deputy Tully is that he himself is quite uncertain of his ground. He has shifted his ground in this series of questions on numerous occasions. The first time he raised this issue he asserted that the Eastern Regional Tourism Organisation knew nothing at all about the formal opening that took place. Then he discovered that ERTO themselves had requested the Office of Public Works to permit them to hold an official opening and so he had to shift his ground elsewhere. Then an effort was made by him to impose the ineptitude of the ERTO on the matter of the preparation of the guest list by seeking to show that there was some sinister design on the part of the officials of the Board of Works. I should like to point out to Deputy Tully that it was necessary for an official of the Board of Works to get in touch with ERTO two days before the opening to ask them if possible to ask the Commissioners themselves and the Parliamentary Secretary to the function which the Board of Works were said to be trying to monopolise. It is a very big storm in a very small teacup. The ERTO made a glorious mess of this and the letter I had from the chairman of the organisation, as late as a couple of days ago, stated that he did not know there was such an opening being held by his organisation. If they do their business in that way you could expect something to go wrong. Evidently they are not able to do their business.
I give the Parliamentary Secretary credit for being an honest man and would he not agree that what he has just stated is a deliberate lie?
The Deputy may not use the expression "deliberate lie."
I shall withdraw it and say that it is an untruth, that he is, in fact, accusing the Eastern Regional Tourism Organisation of doing something which they did not do. Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that the organisation did not request permission to hold an official opening, that the only request made was from one of his own senior officials? Even now the Parliamentary Secretary does not appear to be aware of the vendetta between two sections of the Board of Works. The reason I asked the question was to ensure that these people would be brought out into the open and would not try a trick like this again.
The invitations were issued by the ERTO and not by the Board of Works.
At the Parliamentary Secretary's request.
I made no such request.
The Parliamentary Secretary got it from the chairman.
I cannot understand why Deputy Tully is making such heavy weather out of this minor mistake. For a responsible Deputy such as Deputy Tully to insinuate that some sort of stupid vendetta is going on between officials of the Board of Works is just plain nonsense.
It will not happen again, you can be sure of that. At least it will have that effect.
Question No. 14 postponed.