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

Curaim fáilte roimh Mr. McKay and his fellow committee members. It is useful that Mr. McKay has echoed a position expressed at this committee in respect of the need for NAMA not just to correspond with the committee of the Assembly but, in fact, to appear before it. Perhaps the only efficient mechanism for getting answers to the redaction question that Deputy Ross posed is for NAMA to present before the committee and for the questions of Mr. McKay and his fellow committee members to be put to the agency.

My question to Mr. McKay revolves around the Northern Ireland advisory committee. Mr. McKay strikes what sounds to me like a note of scepticism on the assertion that there was no access to key confidential information regarding debtors or the portfolio. I would like to know why Mr. McKay has arrived at that view. I understand the committee's work is by no means completed but would ask Mr. McKay to set out for us some of the reasons for that scepticism. What is his or the committee's sense - in as much as they have a formed sense at this stage - of the relationship between the Northern Ireland committee and the board proper and the kind of access that committee members had to information. If Mr. McKay could sketch some of that out, it would be useful for our subsequent discussion with NAMA.

Mr. McKay has set out some ideas for co-operation but does he have any thoughts on the mechanisms that might apply to make those ideas or suggestions real?