Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will only say what is in the public domain. It has been reported by informed journalists who had carried out analysis and who reported on what was known in the public domain. Quinn Insurance Limited had descriptions on its balance sheet when PwC was addressing that balance sheet. I am not sure if it was for 2007 or 2008, but it related to balances on deposit. On further examination it turned out that those balances on deposit were in fact inter-company and group holding balances which had been "borrowed from" Quinn Group Holdings for Quinn Insurance Limited.

When the matter was looked into, the regulator and the auditors said it had to be rectified and it was done over a period of about nine months by equal instalment repayments to the group holding company and back into the insurance company. A fine of €3 million was imposed on the company, the largest fine in banking and financial history in this country. However, it was not even a slap on the wrist. If the amount had been €400 million, as it was at one stage, that would have amounted to three quarters of 1% for what had been a raid on cash reserves. Flags were waving, multiple alarms were sounding and orange lights were flashing, yet complacency seemed to follow and again there was drift, which was extraordinary.