Noonan: I can’t promise leaks to Germany won’t occur again

FINANCE Minister Michael Noonan has said there is no way he could promise last week’s leaking of Irish budgetary proposals to German politicians would never happen again.

He said to get the money it needed, the Government had to submit papers which were sent to countries across Europe and he could not make guarantees on the conduct of other parties.

“I can’t give you a commitment that there won’t be leaks in the future because to get the money we require, a lot of documents are generated and they are all over the European countries. We can’t control what happens them (documents) once they leave our hands,” Mr Noonan said.