Mr. Frank Daly:

No, hold on. The Minister quite properly said, "This is a matter for NAMA." That was the substance of his reply to Minister Wilson. Subsequently, there was an approach from Brown Rudnick indicating an interest in our portfolio. We receive expressions of interest in particular portfolios from time to time. Let us be clear about what was running through the Brown Rudnick-PIMCO approach - "We want a closed sale. We do not want you to put it on the market." We took a very strong view from day one that it did not matter what PIMCO or anybody else wanted, this was going to be an open sale. We looked at the approach from PIMCO and, as we would with any other approach for a portfolio, asked if this was a possibility and an opportunity for a portfolio that we regarded as really challenging and troubled and that we figured we would still be struggling to dispose of in 2020. We received an approach and the price was something that interested us, but we were not sure whether it was the right one. We said we would look at it, engage with PIMCO to see what it might be offering, make our own analysis of the portfolio, decide our minimum reserve price and openly market the portfolio, which is what we did right through the process.

There was political interest. It would be naive of me to come here and say there was not. Of course, there was. There has always been a strong political interest in the North-South dimension here. There was political interest, but I can tell the Deputy that whatever the interest was, North or South, it never influenced us in the decision to put the portfolio on the market in the first place - that was based purely on our commercial assessment that this could represent a good outcome for the taxpayer - nor was there - I need to say this, notwithstanding the fact that the Deputy is not suggesting it - any interference, pressure or anything else in relation to the decision in the end to accept the highest and winning bid from Cerberus.

In relation to the confidential memorandum, I do not know what it is. NAMA would never in its wildest dreams have contemplated putting something like that in as a condition of sale of any asset or portfolio.