Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

No, Senator, they weren't made available. In fact, any reference I've seen to those indicate that they were carried out in considerable secrecy because there was also a desire at the time, and, in fact, people often talked, particularly from the Government parties, talked about people wearing green jerseys. There was also as there is now, but more so then, a great deal of inhibition in terms of Oireachtas rules of specific institutions being named. There was one initiative which was undertaken by the Finance Committee partly at my suggestion. The Finance Committee in those days made a visit to the United States every two years or so and it was due to be in the autumn of 2008, and I suggested to the Chair and to the members that with what was evolving, that perhaps we should try and go to the United States and see could we get some level of briefing and so on. We did that, if I recall, in the week after Easter of 2008, and I have to say, I came back from that visit full of a certain amount of foreboding. But, I want to reiterate again, my fears were very concentrated around the way Anglo Irish had developed, and Irish Nationwide, as a small building society. There was an awful lot more information and commentary, and Deputy Rabbitte has referenced one significant piece of commentary, the Morgan Kelly articles in The Irish Times, which were suggesting increasingly that the Irish situation was fragile and at risk. But as against that, I mean, the Department of Finance was very remote from mere Opposition Deputies, was very, it was entirely, if you like, related to in my experience, to the Government and the Government parties.