Mr. Séamus Mac Eochaidh:

The consultants were appointed and our board approved the process in June or July 2010. We indicated the wish to engage the consultants, whose job was to seek partners. This was approved and the consultants reported to us almost 12 months later, indicating the two companies deemed to meet criteria. As an executive, we began due diligence with the companies. We had to meet representatives and see what the companies were doing. Acadian was one of the companies and Setalg, a French company, was the other. We got to know these people and wanted them to understand our vision. This process concerned a State asset and it was not a sale which the company could do with as it wished. Stakeholders other than the State were involved, although it was the principal shareholder. They included employees, harvesters and Irish customers. There were also environmental issues involved. This was a complicated process and we had a recommendation from FGS.
In October that year, an Irish company became involved and questioned why it was not part of the process. When the consultants were asked to take on the job and assembled the list, it asked companies for a list of customers. The company had only been formed in 2008 and it is a fine high-performance start-up, HPSU, company backed by Enterprise Ireland. Nevertheless, it had not really come on the radar by 2010. It was purchasing a relatively small amount of material - approximately 170 tonnes - from Arramara. Arramara would sell approximately 5,000 tonnes of product, as every four tonnes of wet seaweed weighs approximately one tonne when dry. The customer in question bought approximately 3% of Arramara's product, so it was not really on the radar. When it indicated it should have been involved, the company had improved quite a lot and Enterprise Ireland had invested in the company as a HPSU. Kernel Capital had also made an investment, the company was making good strides and it had some patents. It had a licence from the Department to harvest laminaria. We met its representatives and decided it should be admitted to the process in the interest of fairness and transparency.
When this company entered the process, RSM FGS treated it the same way as it had the previous companies, although it had to fast-track the process. The company made a complaint afterwards that it did not have enough time at this stage. We were under pressure and the company had 21 working days to submit its proposals.

By November that year RSM FGS had reported to us and it ranked the company third after the other two companies. It was a good company, but at that point in time RSM FGS did not think it met the criteria we wanted.