Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I will try to contain my indignation. The false declaration of losses as profits and the reckless mismanagement that underlay this practice are pretty criminal by any public or objective standard. What is the Central Bank doing or what can it do to pursue the money that was handed out to the Quinn family?

If I understand the delegates correctly, they are saying they had not adequately got to grips with the problem of the Central Bank's failure to recognise the degree of under-provision for the losses in the Quinn company because of the urgency of selling Quinn Insurance. As one who opposed the sale of Quinn Insurance and who still fails to see the logic of selling it, I do not see the logic behind the people covering the losses, bailing out the company and then handing to Liberty Insurance what could, I presume, be a profitable enterprise. Why was there a rush to sell the company rather than nationalising it such that potential profits could be used to cover the losses we have incurred? Who made the decision to sell? Was pressure exerted by the Government or was it the Central Bank's decision? I would like to know the circumstances surrounding the matter.

Let me consider the question of fees. Some €14 million was paid over three years to the administrators. This is a pretty sizeable sum. How many people were working on this case to account for remuneration at that level? Is this another cost for ordinary insurance holders and people who have already had a big burden imposed on them unfairly? Could the delegates attempt to justify the payment of €14 million over three years as a reasonable cost for the work they have done?