Vol. 571 No. 3
269 Mr. G. Mitchell asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of letters he has sent responding to representations from Members of the Oireachtas stating that the matter is receiving attention in his Department, since his appointment; the number of these which received a further reply; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21811/03]
The Department's records indicate that about 5,000 letters were received from Members of the Oireachtas since the beginning of June 2002. All of these have received an initial reply. The phrasing of the these initial replies will have been determined by their subject matter and it is not possible to say how many of them would have stated "the matter is receiving attention" without examining about 5,000 individual replies.
Some of the matters raised are dealt with by phone and others will have received interim replies. In other cases, events may have overtaken the correspondence with formal replies having been deemed unnecessary, but the records may not have been updated. The records indicate that about 2,500 have received a final reply to date.
