Mr. Des Carville:

I would like to thank the Chairman and his committee for the opportunity to address them this morning. With me this morning are Mr. Gary Tobin, Assistant Secretary General in the banking division in the Department of Finance, Mr. Scott Rankin, deputy head of the shareholding and financial advisory division, Mr. Gary Hynds, senior banking specialist in the shareholding and financial advisory division, Mr Eoin Dorgan, principal officer in the banking division, and Mr. David Tuohy, banking specialist in the shareholding and financial advisory division.

I will focus on chapter 3 of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report on the accounts of the public service 2016. Chapter 3 of this report deals with the cost of the banking stabilisation measures as at year end 2016. From its invitation to the Department of Finance, I understand that the committee particularly wished to discuss the special liquidation of IBRC and specifically the costs incurred as part of the liquidation. However, as per my letter to the committee dated 12 December 2017, having consulted with the Attorney General’s office, unfortunately we are not in a position to respond to queries concerning the costs associated with the special liquidation given that these matters are now the subject of dispute in the High Court awaiting determination. This is as a result of the Department of Finance being served with a plenary summons on 8 December 2017 seeking declaratory reliefs against the Minister for Finance with regard to a number of matters pertaining to the terms and conditions of remuneration and expenses of the special liquidators and their oversight by the Department. We have shared the plenary summons with the committee so it will appreciate its scope. While the special liquidators were due to attend with us today, their legal advice is that it would not be appropriate for them to be present. We have shared the correspondence between the Department and the special liquidators in this regard with the committee for full transparency.

We are very disappointed and frustrated that we are not able to discuss the costs of the liquidation as this is a topic in which we invest considerable efforts to ensure that the taxpayer is getting value for money. We warmly welcome the committee’s interest in this topic as we recognise that the absolute quantum of fees are, on the face of it, large. It was for this reason that in 2014 the first of four detailed reports were published to provide transparency on the work streams associated with the special liquidation and the associated costs of each of these work streams.