Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to follow up on Deputy Catherine Murphy's parliamentary question. The six reports are glorified PowerPoint presentations, which we would have received. There is not much in them besides a headline figure so they will not give us much detail on that, though we could review them before the private meeting. It is good that Deputy Catherine Murphy asked about IBRC, but the response was unsatisfactory. The Minister is obviously a very busy man and these responses are often written on Ministers' behalf by their teams. We can understand that. However, in his answer to Deputy Catherine Murphy, which she has shared with me, the Minister clearly sets out that we disapplied normal rules in legislation for this liquidation, which is the biggest in the history of the State. The Minister says we can go through the six PowerPoint presentations on the website to see the headline figures. However, we have established here that two people have effectively been put in place in lieu of a committee of inspection, and that was reaffirmed recently. Based on my own humble experience, having voluntarily liquidated my own company with very modest turnovers and so on, it is just laughable. The issue here is not that we are not going to get to the end of this, because we will, no matter how long it takes. We will all celebrate and back-clap and say how well it was done, but we have highlighted that we had no benchmark position because no evaluations were done at the beginning, and so on. Apart from that, the Government is heading for costs, by its own admission, of €306 million, and we do not know if that represents good value. The Minister cannot be satisfied, despite what he said in response to Deputy Catherine Murphy's question. We need to stay on this and keep pushing it because long after we are gone, that reflection mechanism Deputy Connolly spoke of will be no doubt set up, there will be a commission of investigation or a tribunal of inquiry, and we could save the State a great deal of money by just doing a few little bits now.