David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will take the Minister out of the picture for a moment and establish what we do know. We know now that Mr. Cushnahan did have a relationship with six debtors, and possibly seven. We know that Mr. Cushnahan had a relationship with Tughans in that he shared one of its offices. We know that two Northern Ireland Advisory Committee, NIAC, meetings took place in Tughans' offices. We also know that there was a three-legged stool that made up the PIMCO success fee, and that three-legged stool was Brown Rudnick, Tughans and Mr. Cushnahan.

We also know that once that came into the public domain and PIMCO was made aware of the success fee and informed NAMA, it eventually withdrew from the process. We know that two of the three legs of the PIMCO success stool transferred seamlessly from PIMCO to Cerberus and the briefing note Mr. Reid prepared states the disclosure of the proposed payment arrangement by PIMCO was shocking. Mr. Reid accepts that it was shocking. However, what is also shocking is that neither Mr. Reid, anybody in the Department nor the Minister acted on it. The Minister says he does not have any power to act because he cannot interfere on the commercial side of NAMA, but it ceased being simply commercial when it possibly became a corrupted process. He then had a responsibility to act.

I take exception to what Ms Nolan said when she was asked why the information had not been shared with the Northern Ireland Executive, that when the Department had received this information, it was sensitive information and that it had to be careful about what it did with it. We are not talking about giving information to a guy or a lady in one's local bar, rather we are talking about the Office of the First Minister and the deputy First Minister. The witnesses might smile and consider this funny, but it is not. This was a very serious issue. The Minister was made aware of a success fee which Mr. Reid says was shocking. He was made aware of a shocking revelation about the success fee. It is quite obvious that it was shocking and that it corrupted the process.