Mr. Matt Staunton:

I might start. However, at the outset, I note the time remaining may not necessarily enable us to do justice regarding some of the questions posed. Let me pick it up in this way: whatever some people and users might think about Coillte, it most certainly is not a basket case but is economically viable. It is a company that returned a profit of €32 million in 2010 and a profit of €20 million in 2011. It provided a dividend to the State of €10 million in 2011 and an interim dividend last year of €2 million, with the promise of more. Let us be straight - there is no question of a viability issue in this regard. Were Coillte the Irish arm of a multinational, everyone would be singing its praises but because we own it ourselves, for some reason people miss that point.

As we went through this campaign, a couple of things became evident. When one compared the consultation process with the position in Britain - a different jurisdiction - it was way out of sync. The British had a much longer, broader and wider consultation process. We certainly are aware of the ideologies of the Government over there at present in respect of the sale of State assets. However, it was so taken aback by the show of support from people in that country that it stopped in its tracks. This consultation deficit brings me to the next point, which I mentioned earlier, namely, there is something of a vacuum in this regard. We keep considering strands of reports that were commissioned but as to who knows about this or that report, we certainly do not know about them and were not consulted on them.