Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I want to move onto a couple of other questions. Mr. Ellingham spoke about the attitude in Northern Ireland. Most of us presumed that the political concerns in Northern Ireland were really about the risk to the Northern Ireland economy of a fire sale but Mr. Ellingham has just given the committee a different kind of take on it with regard to what the attitude might have been in Northern Ireland to having a large vulture fund instead of NAMA being involved. What led Mr. Ellingham to that conclusion? It was said, I think by Mr Ellingham, that it was a very difficult environment there, that it was the worst of the collection of loan books or the culture with regard to the cost that might be carried. Will Mr. Ellingham indicate if that was across all the performing, non-performing, residential or commercial sections, was it a general culture or was it unique to any particular section?