Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I respect NAMA's right to state that, but we certainly were not asking NAMA to come in to comment on Government policy; we were asking it to comment on the fact that it consented with the owner, Mr. Conlon, to go to the High Court to liquidate the hospital. That is the key issue. We wanted to find out whether a certain number of millions of euro would have sustained this entity to the point where it would have reached profitability.

The joint committee must explore this issue and if representatives of the National Asset Management Agency are unwilling to come before us, we should write to it seeking further information about what was on offer. The Mulchrone-Barry offer proposed a sum of €10 million for creditors, including the Revenue, of which the State would obviously recoup some money, and an additional €4 million. Given that the hospital is still for sale, the key issue is what will happen to it and if it will continue to operate as a medical facility. One must also ask whether it was intentionally liquidated to tidy up legacy issues, for example, staffing, thus allowing it to be placed on the market as a medical facility without legacy issues attached. We must keep an eye on that issue because if that was the case, NAMA was complicit in that approach.