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

These are briefing notes for the Minister marked "Private and Confidential". I am talking about document No. 8. Going on from there, under the sections entitled "Our Position" and "Business Conduct", there are blanks. It is difficult to believe, in the context of the work of this committee, that anyone could stand over the blanking out of that much information from documents that we are trying to examine. Will Ms Nolan look at the amount of paperwork in the Department related to the concerns that were expressed about transactions by officials within the Department? Consideration must be given to the fact that if a business is purchasing from IBRC it is up to the business to get the best deal possible, but it is up to IBRC and the Department's officials to ensure that taxpayers' interests are looked after. I want to see within those documents how well that interest was looked after, because it would seem to me that someone fell asleep at the wheel.

Earlier, Deputy Perry was trying to tease this out when he spoke about the various activities within the Department about the Secretary General and, perhaps, others. Listening to what he had to say, I suppose it is going too far to describe it as a shambles. However, it would seem to me that someone lost track of the course of things when officials were replaced, while on the other side - the commercial side - no one lost sight of what was going on. I am not talking specifically about one company.

Returning to my question, will the Department release the information on the concerns its officials had about the various transactions without redaction? I do not expect Ms Nolan to answer that now, but she can certainly follow it up.