Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 26 February 2015

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

10:00 am

Photo of Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have not had the opportunity to look at the transcript but I have no doubt they quote me accurately. The impression I was given as a member of this committee was that mediation was the preferred channel of resolution. A reasonable person who went back and read the totality of the exchange would come away with that impression, although I am prepared to go back and look at exactly what was and what was not said. I may have been too emphatic in my understanding of what the delegates were saying but it does not, at any rate, resolve the issue and I do not know where it leaves this particular family or other people caught up in this process. My impression of the delegation was that they were quite sure-footed and I felt reassured that they were committed to mediation as the best and first option.

This correspondence leads one to a different view. It states that it outlined how mediation works, which it did, and the purpose of mediation. It also states: "NAMA's evidence about its attitude to mediation was very clear, as is evident from the various excerpts of the transcripts of the meeting. It cannot be reasonably well argued in the circumstances that the committee was misled." I am not saying they were deliberately misleading us but I took a different meaning from them on the day from the meaning I get from this letter. This letter is mediocre in tone as regards NAMA's commitment to mediation but that was the whole basis of our discussion in regard to the matter we were probing in respect of Mrs. De Vere Hunt and her family. Rather than clarifying matters, I feel this correspondence has confused things. I would like clarity from NAMA and would like them to write to us to amplify the position they took while before the committee. I would like to know what their commitment to mediation is in general and in the particular case of the De Vere Hunt family.

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