Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 27 February 2014

Public Accounts Committee

Payments to Section 39 Companies: Discussion

4:20 pm

Photo of John McGuinnessJohn McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My difficulty with all that has happened today is this particular exchange about this piece of information has gone around and around. That was the same with other pieces of information we tried to get from Ms Kerins. I will finish on this point because obviously we will not agree on it. The Committee of Public Accounts has a job to do. I told Ms Kerins that the legal end of it, the lead-up to this, how to present it and so on, was unhelpful. The exchange today has been constructive. We got excellent information about everything we needed to know.

It would be helpful if the remuneration committee and Mr. Flannery were here. The Committee of Public Accounts extended an invitation to them. I would have thought that Ms Kerins would have thought long and hard about that and the wishes of the Committee on Public Accounts and have brought them along. It is unhelpful it did not happen. It gives rise to unnecessary speculation and tension. The exchange we have just had is typical of some of the questions that were asked. I know they were difficult and that it is not easy for all of the people invited to be here but we have a job to do. We have done that job today. We could have done it with much less tension had it been approached differently.

What coaching and so on went into the witnesses' preparation for this meeting?

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