Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Two issues arise. From the perspective of State aids, if an unfavourable deal was done with one group, namely, the MDU that would have implications for the MPS which at all stages made it clear that it is prepared to make a sum of money available if we were to take over the past liabilities.

We have tried to have a due diligence exercise carried out because there are major differences between both sides. The MDU puts the value of the historic and known cases at approximately €160 million. The State team puts it at €400 million. There is a large gap between the two. The due diligence exercise is to establish the true position with a view to reaching agreement on the sums of money concerned. We do not have those issues with the MPS and if we were to take over the MPS cases, we would expect an appropriate monetary contribution.

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