Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank the Chairman for facilitating this briefing.

One interesting word that sticks out in this deliberation is "ponzi". We all know what happens with ponzi schemes. The witnesses said that they were brought in by the attractive advertising literature and so forth and, no matter what game people are in, they get caught by attractive selling. Given the prevailing situation at the time and the amount of money involved, would the witnesses have checked out the company's history? Would they have known about the directors or operators and checked out their careers and backgrounds?