Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Daly, Mr. McDonagh and all of the staff. I have found the day's proceedings to be great stuff. It has been like a political version of "EastEnders" in here today. It has been great and very engrossing. The witnesses have come here today and made a very stern defence of their process and the net result which they say was a good deal for the Irish taxpayer. The witnesses have really come out swinging. However, we spent the morning in a three and a half hour session here with the gentleman sitting to the witnesses' right who made a very stern case that NAMA did not. I made a note of his comments. He says it was not a well-designed sale process, "This sales process does not give me confidence that the best price was achieved and that there was not another process available." Despite the fact that NAMA has questions about the expertise of his staff or the fact that they did not engage outside expertise, he has robustly defended his position and the findings he produced for the members of the committee to make their summation.

While NAMA has come out today with a fighting spirit, why, if it was such a good deal and everything is in order, do we have, as Deputy Aylward has said, the Taoiseach not accepting it and the Government going down on the issue of price in terms of an inquiry? Why has there not been an acceptance among the public and media commentators of the message on the discount of which NAMA speaks?