John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Moran and his officials. I understand he was only appointed in July 2014, but I wish to refer to some historical issues on which we need answers because this is the first opportunity Department of Finance officials have had to respond to parliamentarians directly on these issues - Siteserv, in particular - the timelines involved and the issues that have arisen. Mr. Moran may delegate as necessary to provide responses to the questions. Although he may not have been the person involved in the meetings, we need clarity on the issues involved, notwithstanding the written responses we have received from the Department in recent days.

I will start by asking questions about the Siteserv shares. Media reports in the past couple of months have suggested there was a sudden spike in Siteserv share activity between November 2011 and February 2012. I find it curious that it took a request from a Member of the Dáil to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement to initiate a potential investigation into issues that might have arisen from the sudden spike in share activity. When the Department read media reports on an organisation, of which it had oversight through IBRC, which was in effect sold by the State, what did it do? Did it make inquiries about the share prices and activity reported in late 2011 and early 2012?