Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

PIMCO had a head start of almost 12 months on everyone else. It became involved in October but we now learn it was looking at the portfolio in April. A semi-open tender commenced for a few selected companies. Why was it open for only three weeks, which seems to be a very short period? Why was it confined to three weeks when other companies were showing an interest, for example, Fortress and Cerberus? Given that PIMCO had a headstart of nine months and would still have been in the game were it not for what transpired afterwards, why was the tender open for only three weeks?