Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB

4:30 pm

Mr. Ray MacSharry:

The Deputy can have his interpretation as he likes and I have mine. There is nobody around more than I who would love to see the kind of questions the Deputy is asking being answered in the positive but somebody somewhere, the taxpayer probably, is going to have to put up money - in addition to what already has been put in - if that has to be done. I would love to be in a position to say to the Deputy that is going to happen but first of all I am not an executive of the company, I am a non-executive director with the role of approving of not approving policies brought forward by the executive with my vote, if it is required, or my consensus. I will continue to play that role but in the public interest I personally would love to see everybody who is in arrears tonight find a windfall before Christmas and have their arrears wiped out but that is not the real world. We have to live in the real world under company law.