Page 4032 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 22 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Well, Mr Connolly, that is where you hanged yourself, because you are lazy as a Minister. You do not even remember what you say from one week to the next. When Ms Maher followed this up a week later and asked you a further question, you then said, "Yes, there was going to be a reduction". I repeat, "there was going to be a reduction". You had forgotten what you said a week before and now you answered the question, not in terms of whether there was going to be an increase, which you now claim is the first question; you are now saying, "In fact, there is going to be a decrease".
The simple fact is that you did not even remember the first question when Ms Maher asked you about it. You thought, with your bombast and bluster, that you could bulldoze your way through and you would never be held to account for it. Well, you are being held to account for it. There is no question whatsoever in my mind that you answered that question deliberately and specifically.
You can try to reinterpret history today. You can reinterpret history today. You are a lawyer, Mr Connolly. You know the precision of words and you know the precision of answers to questions. I presume that, as a practising lawyer, you have asked questions of witnesses in the courtroom, you have recorded their answers and you have held them to account for the answers. You are a lawyer. Now you are held to account for your answers.
Either you deliberately intended to mislead the members of the Estimates Committee or you thought you could make a flippant off-the-cuff remark and get away with it. Neither is the case. The records are before us and it is quite clear that you understood clearly the question. You answered the question and you said, "No, no".
Mr Connolly: Read the full answer.
MR KAINE: There is no amplification of the answer necessary. I am glad that you keep questioning it, because it gives me an opportunity to restate it. You were asked a specific question that had to do with changes in numbers - non-specific beyond that - and you said, "No".
I repeat, Mr Connolly, that either you knew that you were answering that question incorrectly, or you were demonstrating your intellectual superiority and telling these intellectual inferiors to buzz off because you could not be bothered with their questions. In either case, you are condemned. I agree with Mr Duby; you deserve to be censured and I agree with him that I suspect that when this debate is over you will be.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .