A demand by the Louth residents taking a legal action against Sellafield to have a verbatim note of their proposed meeting with the Minister of State for Public Enterprise was described by the Taoiseach as unreasonable. Mr Ahern urged the residents to sit down "in the normal way" as other groups did, without stenographers, and talk to Mr Joe Jacob, whom, he said, was a person who could be spoken to. The Government had funded the research involved in the case and had committed itself to paying for any further research. There were accumulated legal bills which might be at issue. "What I would like to see is that we could research the case, see if a case can be taken, and then get on with it."

However, it would be very hard to proceed if they insisted in having rows with the Minister of State, and refuse to talk to him or his officials without stenographers. "I just hope they stop being so unreasonable," he added.

Mr Ivan Yates of Fine Gael said he agreed with the Taoiseach that the best way to proceed was by way of a meeting, but he had to say the residents were very concerned about the subsequent misrepresentation of facts.

"Therefore, is the Taoiseach saying that there will be no meeting if there can be no record taken of the meeting? Surely if there is a question of transparency, it is not unreasonable, given the very detailed documentation involved here, that there should be a verbatim account of such a meeting?"

Mr Ahern said notes were taken at most meetings involving ministers and opposition spokespeople. "There is no difficulty with that. I have to say in 20 years in politics I never had a group who said they would only meet me if they had stenographers."

Mr Emmet Stagg (Labour, Kildare North) asked if the Government would agree to allow Mr Jacob, who was doing the best job he could, given that one hand was tied behind his back by his senior colleagues, to go ahead with the meeting with a note-taker from both sides present.

Mr Ahern said that the matter could be resolved if both sides wanted to have notetakers. "The issue is that one side wants stenographers, which is interpreted differently. If we can stay with notetakers, the answer is yes."