Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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When I was invited to meet the then First Minister, Mr. Robinson, at Stormont, it was scheduled to have the deputy First Minister there as well. He was not there on the day. When I met him subsequently, he apologised.

He said he had to attend a funeral and apologised for not being there. However, he never expressed to me that the views expressed by Mr. Robinson were not his views. There is a record, and the committee has a minute of it, of a telephone call which I received from the First Minister's office. The Deputy First Minister, Mr. McGuinness, was in the office. He was there at the time of the telephone call and that is recorded. He did not resile from the views expressed by Peter Robinson either. On all occasions, I gave the information that it was appropriate to give, I outlined the process and I said there would be no one-to-one deal here, that it would have to be a fully competitive process and that if they had a proposal, they should take it to NAMA as I did not deal with the commercial end of this.