asked the Minister for Energy (i) the names and addresses of the petrol stations in the Dublin area, (ii) the name of their normal supplier in each case and (iii) the order in which such stations were supplied with petrol by the Defence Forces during the recent unofficial industrial action by petrol tanker drivers.
Ceisteanna—Questions . Oral Answers . - Petrol Supplies .
13.
: The information referred to in the Deputy's question is not available in the form specified by him. In order to assemble the information for a full and detailed reply to his question it would be necessary to abstract from, and cross-check with, a number of records including the order schedules prepared at the oil depots and the delivery lists which were compiled by the Defence Forces. These records relate to several hundreds of deliveries of different kinds of oil.
The Deputy will appreciate my reluctance to have the considerable administrative work involved undertaken. I will consider this if there is no more simple way of dealing with the matter. I would suggest, however, that the Deputy might let me know now or later whether he has a particular case or a particular aspect of the supply operation in mind and I will endeavour to provide the appropriate information.
: Would it be possible for Deputy Boland himself—on the basis of the information that is available—to be able to supply the answer to this question if it was made available by the Minister?
: If the Deputy studies the question he will see that it seeks information about the whole operation in the Dublin area and even what that is would have to be defined. I doubt very much if the Deputy requires that information. It may be that he requires more specific information and, if he would indicate that to me, I will try to give it to him.
: That is not quite what I am getting at. In relation to the right of a Deputy to access to this information could he, by using his own endeavours—on the basis of the information supplied by the Minister in the form in which it is in the Minister's possession—then be able to answer the question?
: There would be a very considerable amount of administrative work involved in providing this information which when available, would be very voluminous.
: But it must be there in some form; a copy of that is what I am talking about.
: A great deal of work would have to be done to correlate this information which exists in different places under different headings. For example, just to take the ownership of each of the stations, which is one of the questions asked, it would take quite a bit to correlate that with other information that is available about deliveries. I cannot believe that the Deputy really wants the information for which he appears to ask. I would find great difficulty in justifying the expenditure of that amount of effort on it. I am trying to give the Deputy as much information as I can. If he would indicate to me more precisely his area of concern I will endeavour to give him the information that will enable him to follow that up.