Mr. Séamus Mac Eochaidh:

No, not at that point. We did not know enough about the industry to settle on what we would do. In 2010, when the issue came under my remit, we had done much work and commissioned some reports about the industry to get to know what it looked like. There were some interested parties in the companies. Admittedly, there were parties which were willing to take the company off our hands for €1. We decided in 2010 to formalise the process and we appointed consultants to seek that strategic partner. We did not publicly advertise the process because we were trying to keep the company as a going concern. We did not want to hang a "for sale" sign over the door. We had employees, harvesters and customers, and we did not feel it would be the proper mechanism in this case. This was not a fire sale and we wanted to keep the process under our control, so we engaged consultants, who put together nine potential partners. At this stage, the company had built up a big customer in France and there were various other parties active in the industry. The consultants sought expressions of interest from those people. We did not want any tyre kickers. Many people indicated a wish to visit Arramara and see what the company does. One must protect what one has. It was not a sale to be publicly advertised on the back of The Irish Times.