Apologies have been received by Senators Norris and Walsh who are away on official business. The draft minutes of the meeting of 17 November have been circulated to members. Are the minutes of the meeting agreed?
Business of Joint Committee
On the minutes, I raised previously a reply from the Department about the issue of Members of the Oireachtas having mobile phone numbers for ambassadors which seems to be a State secret. Could someone give us a written reply?
Senator Daly must raise that on any other business at the end. That is not in the minutes. I will take it off him at the end of the meeting. Are the minutes agreed? Agreed. Unless there are matters arising from these minutes, we will proceed with the main business of the meeting.
It is an important issue. It has been raised with me by a number of people. I refer to the tapping of everyone's mobile phone. Is the committee taking a lead on that issue?
We will deal with that under correspondence, if the Senator does not mind. It is in correspondence. Is that all right?
We have only one-----
I do not want to deal with it now because I want to bring in our guest. I promise the Senator I will deal with it under correspondence.
We have only one meeting left. The Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade should deal with the tapping of the mobile phones by the British Government because-----
We have actually two meetings left, not one.
One meeting should be entirely about that.
I will give Senator Daly an opportunity to raise that issue under correspondence. There is no problem whatsoever but I do not want to get into the business of the meeting at this stage. We have a guest waiting and I want to bring her in and get the meeting started. On the minutes, I call Senator Michael Mullins.
On Syria and Dr. Hashemi's visit, some questions were raised and there was not time for a response. The Minister indicated that we would get a-----
Was that the meeting with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charles Flanagan?
It was.
That was dealt with. We will get back to the Minister's office to ensure that any unanswered questions on which the Minister was to revert will be forwarded to us in writing. The Senator and other members may have other questions that were not answered.