Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 5 November 2020

Public Accounts Committee

2019 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2019
Chapter 17 - Ireland Apple Escrow Fund

11:30 am

Mr. Derek Moran:

To run through it, essentially, they looked at comparable liquidations to the extent they could. Liquidations are all different, but it is the scale here. They looked at the hourly rates applicable and found them to be lower than court-approved rates. Given the exchanges we have had with the Deputy over the last couple of years, it was really important that we get somebody, not us, to look at this. There are lower than average UK insolvency rates. There has been no increase in the fees over the period since the liquidation started, which is unusual. Usually one would have a liquidator going to the court and looking for increases of fees because of the duration. If the Deputy remembers there was a rebate on fees of €5 million that was agreed with the liquidators and, while they could not be exhaustive on this, they had not come across a situation like that. I am happy to make it available to the Deputy and I am happy to deal with any queries.