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

The difficulty is that there appears to have been people who were bidders, or potential bidders, who felt there was a perceived advantage to PIMCO, which had been in the process a long time. Deputy MacSharry has just referred to what Fortress told the committee about not being allowed to syndicate pre-bid finance. I appreciate that Mr. Daly has answered this but it appears there were a lot of constraints put on people or entities. It is certainly the impression, cropping up over and over again, that there was an attempt to limit the number who would fall in at the end in this process. Obstacles were put in the way with regard to local valuations and in other ways.