Mr. Frank Daly:

I am not saying we needed the advisory committee but if one goes back to the origins of this and NAMA in 2009-10, there was an extremely sensitive issue in Northern Ireland because here was a Southern body suddenly owning or controlling a huge chunk of assets in Northern Ireland. There was great sensitivity actually around that. During discussions with the then Minister, Mr. Lenihan, in 2009, it was agreed that part of the response to this would be to create a Northern Ireland advisory committee with no decision-making powers, but which would advise the NAMA board on broad strategic issues around Northern Ireland. That is the committee that Mr. Cushnahan and Mr. Rowntree were appointed to.

By the way, I am making the point very clearly that Mr. Cushnahan got no inside or useful information from his Northern Ireland advisory committee activities. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he picked up other information in relation to all of these debts and debtors and whatever in Northern Ireland. It is a small business community up there, as we know. There is lots of talk. Debtors talk about their indebtedness to NAMA. Debtors talk about the types of assets they have in NAMA. So there are plenty of other ways in which somebody who wants to put it about that they have an inside track can get information, but he did not get it from NAMA.