Mr. Seán Quigley:

We do not consider there was a conflict of interest. We did consider, and I discussed this with the President of the High Court.

The background to this was we put this work, both the investment advice and the independent review, out to tender. The reality is that the market in Ireland, in particular, in Dublin, for the level of expertise needed for a fund the size of what we have - €1.8 billion and 20,000 beneficiaries - is quite small. There are only two firms over the years that have consistently applied - Aon Hewitt and Mercer. Aon Hewitt was the only one that responded. If Mercer had responded, it would have been precluded because it was the investment adviser. We were satisfied that they were independent. They are governed by the regulatory authorities themselves and they cannot come along and say what suits us. This was one of the reasons I referenced this other review, which we did not even know was happening, as evidence that here is something completely unsolicited which stated that what we were doing there is good practice. We would be satisfied that there was not a conflict of interest.