Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I suppose I should state at the outset that I am a former Minister in the Department and ran - or was involved in, oversaw or whatever is the word for what the Minister does - a procurement process. That ended up with a single bidder, Three, which ended up winning the process. I am glad to say we delivered the project on time and to budget. I met the bidders at various stages throughout that process.

Even in this role, as an Opposition spokesperson for this area on this committee, I have met Mr. McCourt, recently and just once. I meet ESB every now and then. I meet Eir, meet Vodafone and meet SIRO. I meet everyone because one needs to talk to people to have an understanding of what is a complex technological area.

Mr. Smyth detailed all the various meetings that the former Minister, Deputy Naughten, had and I asked myself, "What is different? Why did the then Minister, Deputy Naughten, resign?" Maybe I got the answer in a line of Mr. Smyth's report. Where he speaks of the number of meetings the then Minister had and the dinners he had, Mr. Smyth's report states:

The remaining meetings as and of themselves gave rise to a concern as they suggest an ongoing engagement between the former Minister and Mr McCourt outside of any formal need for them to engage with each other in the normal course of the Department's business including the State-led intervention under the NBP.

Given that characterisation, as I read it in the report, does Mr. Smyth agree that what happened in this instance was that some of the meetings were not part of what would ordinarily be regarded as a formal need for engagement between a Minister and industry representatives, including those in a tender process?