David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is my last line of questioning. I am nearly finished. Mr. Soffe said a few minutes ago that the board took a very strong view that PIMCO had to go. When the Comptroller and Auditor General first attended the committee on this subject, I put that to him. He had looked at all the documentation that was available in terms of the conference calls, notes that were taken by the legal team from NAMA and others, and he came to the view that PIMCO voluntarily withdrew from the process. Let us look at what is said in the report. We have it up on the screen. It is under the heading of "Conference calls". It states, "The Head of Asset Recovery enquired about ‘other options’". This was when there was a discussion after PIMCO made NAMA aware of the success fee. The head of asset recovery at the time was Mr. Ronnie Hanna. He was asking about other options. He then asked if the deal could be "shaped differently for the arrangement fee to come out". There was a bit of toing and froing between the boards.

What is in the documentation that was presented to the Comptroller and Auditor General seems to be in stark contrast to Mr. Daly's assertion when he was before the committee that PIMCO had to go and to what Mr. Soffe has said today. When Mr. Daly was pressed on this, he came back and said that NAMA had to nuance its strategy and be tactical. What did that mean? Did something get lost in translation between Mr. Hanna leaving the board meeting at which there was an understanding that PIMCO had to go, if that is what happened, and seeing whether NAMA could shape it differently for the arrangement fee to come out to keep PIMCO in the game? It does not seem to stack up, does it not?