Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

No and I would share Deputy Connolly's frustration with that. I know that the report is not an easy read. It is difficult and tortuous but there are concerns raised therein around the quality of information presented to the board, on which the board was asked to make a decision and difficulties with the meaning of board minutes. To be in a situation where we are disputing the meaning of words is highly frustrating for everybody.

There are a few other points that I would like to make that may address some of the issues raised by Deputy Connolly. The NAMA representation of the sales process is that the nine largest potential purchasers in the world had access to it. That misses completely the evolution of the sales process. It was never intended to involve the nine largest players involved. That would be my reading of it, if one works through it and sees the way it evolved. We tried to lay that out in our report.

Some witnesses from NAMA have said that I have used the benefit of hindsight in looking at certain aspects of this but one could only describe it as "with hindsight looking back" to claim that nine potential purchasers were approached. That is one perspective on it but there is another perspective when one looks at the way it evolved. For example, the paper that was put to the board on 8 January by the asset recovery unit in NAMA proposed that Lazard be appointed and at least two other purchasers be invited to look at the portfolio in the data room. Those purchasers would be given about two weeks in the data room and then Lazard would come back with a recommendation by 31 January.

As for being castigated as not having market understanding or market knowledge when that is the proposal that comes from asset recovery, that would have been simply a pretence of a sale process. In fairness to the board, it said there needed to be more than this and more time had to be given. A better process was run but that was the starting point. That would have been a token exercise.