Another stumbling block the House stumbles over is that new documents keep emerging showing that the government could have intervened much sooner. Already three times in six months documents have emerged that have not been shared with the parliamentary commission of inquiry.
Billions of documents
Prime Minister Rutte defended himself by emphasizing the large amount of documents. ‘There are 25 million records on the Employment and Social Affairs Network Units. Finance involves 19 million documents and tax and customs administration, including allowances, involves 4 billion documents spread across 9,000 servers and over 100,000 cooperation areas,” the prime minister said.
Rutte says this is by no means a valid reason the docs have gone under the table, but he does want to underscore what an “insane amount of docs” is involved. He therefore does not exclude the possibility that some things will come to light in the future. So more corpses can come out of the closet.
“We didn’t understand why the secretary of state suddenly resigned on December 18, but now we understand”
Menno. Come down early
The independent deputy Pieter Omtzigt points to a “total bombshell” that the then state secretary Menno Snel received on his desk on December 17, 2000: an e-mail stating that the Tax and Customs Administration for Services was not complying with the law on 21 points. “We didn’t understand why he suddenly resigned on December 18, but we understand it now and we understand it three years later,” says Omtzigt.
Emotions
Prime Minister Rutte specifically addressed parents in the public gallery, some of whom reacted emotionally. However, according to political journalist Mats Akkermans, the prime minister was not really in danger during the debate. ‘Some parties, such as SP, DENK and MP Pieter Omtzigt are completely done with Prime Minister Mark Rutte. They are fed up. But there are also parties that say: this is why an entire government has already resigned. What does it add if another cabinet resigns two and a half years later over the same story?’