Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Acting Chairman. This afternoon's proceedings are a bit of an eye-opener.

As a taxpayer and somebody who pays the 2% insurance levy for this compensation fund every year, the issue of Quinn Insurance Limited is one of those subjects that has been moving around in the back of my head for a long time. The amount of money we are talking about is staggering.

Mr. McAteer, in his presentation, set out the facts and the financial and operational position upon his appointment. He had to go in and deal with what was there. According to what was revealed here this afternoon, it was not a pretty picture.

There was mention here that the Quinn family extracted €200 million in 2007 and 2008 by way of gifts. It appears these gifts were money transfers to internal property companies within the Quinn Group. The Central Bank representative described these as perhaps not gifts, but tax efficiencies. Is it the case that there was tax evasion?

It has been revealed here that the practices the company was engaged in were at best questionable and at worst, perhaps, reckless. It could be described as Wild West capitalism and some have described it as that. It is alarming that a major insurance company in Ireland was engaged in siphoning off more than €200 million and using it for internal companies - it now appears the money was used mainly overseas to buy up property - at a time when its balance sheets were in a precarious state. What I want to know is what the regulator or the Central Bank was doing. Who was supposed to be protecting the small people such as us who pay their 2% levy and their PAYE every week, or why were we not being protected?