Mr. John Moran:

I have been here even less time than Deputy McDonald, and have certainly spent less time in the Chamber. As I have already pointed out in respect of freedom of information, and I have only read the media reports on this, but even the summary of that was an incorrect representation of the freedom of information request. Included in the documents that were not officially released but were already in the public domain, were three parliamentary questions, of which all Deputies would be aware, and therefore not even 13 documents were deemed to be commercially sensitive. Some of those parliamentary questions seemed to go to the heart of some of the unfounded allegations that there was an unfair treatment of one party to what seems to be a commercial dispute where we find ourselves in the middle. There was a specific request in from a Deputy to ask us if we had passed on representations made by Mr. McKillen to NAMA. I think Deputy Doherty asked that question. There was clearly an interest in the House to ensure that we were passing on representations made by parties to the dispute to the relevant institutions.

On the other hand it seems that the accusations of partiality, which I have said are unfounded, seem to suggest that in some way passing on communication received from the other party to the dispute to an institution that is involved there, the IBRC, seems to be something that is inappropriate for the Department to do, which I reject.