Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Chairman. As members will know, I have an interest in the IBRC liquidation going back over the past year. On my recommendation, as a committee, we included in our last periodic report a recommendation to establish a committee of inspection within the liquidation. We discussed that it would include, for example, representatives from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

I had also made the unorthodox suggestion that we would consider making an approach to the person who has a legal case against the Department of Finance and the Minister for Finance, for effectively the same reasons, to have increased oversight of the liquidation. There was agreement in principle by the committee to do that and I was to come back with a recommendation of what shape that might take or how we would proceed. In a personal capacity, and not on behalf of the committee, I contacted the plaintiff in that case and asked, in a personal capacity, how he envisaged such a thing would happen. He sent me some documentation that I received in the past couple of days and which I will circulate to committee members. His documentation seems to indicate to me that the Office of the Chief State Solicitor and the Department of Finance clearly listened to our deliberations and have taken the unprecedented step to contact the plaintiff with a suggestion of exploring the possibility of withdrawing the case and that they would defer to the Committee of Public Accounts. While the suggestion is very unorthodox, it is something that could save the State a lot of money. It might also enable us to ask questions and provide the level of oversight that are required.

In the past number of weeks we have had the fifth progress report on the liquidation. On reading that report I am concerned that while probably legal in terms of accountancy law and practice, perhaps morally it was not as transparent as I would prefer, particularly from a legal fees perspective. I have been shown documentation, and I see that the matter was covered in the media last weekend, where Arthur Cox, which is one legal firm, received €23,000 in a given year. I have also been shown documentation that in one case alone, the company had billed out nearly £980,000, which is not obvious from reading the presentation.

The underlying issue is the kind of questioning and second guessing that ought to be required and is normal practice in a liquidation has not been done in this instance. Perhaps the Department and KPMG are doing the best possible job anybody could do. Given the hundreds of millions of euro that are now involved and the likelihood that the costs will grow substantially - this liquidation being the biggest in the history of the State and, perhaps, one of the biggest in European history - it requires a greater level of scrutiny.

I will circulate the documentation I have been given, which then will leave it up to members. I will pass it on. I sought the information in a personal capacity and I think it is useful. On the back of the documentation, when it arrives, we should write to the Department of Finance or the Office of the Chief State Solicitor or perhaps both and ask how we can assist. There is a basis for this case to be discontinued, which would save money for everybody. More importantly, we, as a committee, may be able to participate and provide the necessary level of scrutiny in terms of looking after taxpayers' money. At the moment, this matter reeks of autopilot. I found, having read the progress report, that while potentially it is perfectly legal in accountancy terms, it lacks the kind of transparency to which I believe the public is entitled.