Mr. Mark Griffin:

We got correspondence from the CEO of Eir. There was a meeting on 23 January, attended by the former Minister, Deputy Denis Naughten, and Mr. Richard Moat, who was CEO of Eir at the time. I was in attendance, as were Mr. Ó hÓbáin and one or two other colleagues. We made it clear at that meeting with the CEO that we had done considerable work on addressing the red line issues Eir had set out. Mr. Moat indicated to us his intention to withdraw from the procurement process. I said to him that in every normal negotiation in which I have been involved often the most difficult issues to be addressed are those issues that are left to the end. There was a possibility that we would be capable of moving on some of the other red line issues Eir had identified but on others we simply could not, again going back to the obligations of the state aid rules and the contract.

As we said earlier, that meeting should not be seen in isolation. We had 65 meetings and 200 hours of dialogue with the company prior to that. Everything it had ventilated in terms of concerns and that it has put in the letter we received in the last week were all on the table when we were in the dialogue process. We asked Mr. Moat to go back and meet his board to reconsider because we felt it was important for it to be involved in the process. He went back to his board, reconsidered and wrote to the Minister on 30 or 31 January stating that the company was withdrawing from the process. We did not have contact with him, perhaps, other than through-----