Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

It was reported in the media that Fortress had to e-mail an official in the Department of the Taoiseach to get access. That is completely untrue. I know the senior managing director of Fortress. I met him a number of times in 2009 and we had stayed in touch over various things. He e-mailed me on 13 February 2014. My e-mail is available - there is nothing in it. Basically, it says, "Brendan, how's it going?". It talked about the rugby match at the weekend, and stated that he had just heard through one of his colleagues that the Northern Ireland portfolio may be on the market, and that it was something Fortress would be interested in. I forwarded that e-mail to my colleague, asking to get Lazard to contact them because I met this guy and I had no issue with him, and I would know Fortress from the previous life. Fortress was contacted by Lazard that evening, on 13 February. They were sent a non-disclosure agreement, NDA, on 14 February and they did not return their signed NDA - one cannot get access to the data room until one signs the NDA - until 26 February. I do not know why it took them 12 days to sign it. Maybe they had to go through their own internal compliance or whatever, but they were invited into the process, on the evening of 13 February but, certainly, on 14 February when they were sent the NDA.