Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)

A total of 21 staff were working on the commission, including Mr. Nyberg himself, and there were five administrative staff from the Department. When Mr. Nyberg first took up his position the Department of Finance assisted him in the initial preparatory work upon his arrival in this country. Once formally established the commission recruited staff independently in accordance with the provision of section 8 of the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004. He wished to ensure that the people who assisted him had appropriate experience to address the issues in the terms of the reference which required people with expertise in banking, finance and accounting rather than lay practitioners of goodwill. The selection criteria included solid, practical, professional experience in banking, lending and credit, credit and risk management, asset liability management, general governance supervision, property market issues and accounting expertise. That kind of expertise arose from the terms of reference of the commission, which was voted through in the House.

One might ask why the commission did not use a competitive tendering process. Mr. Nyberg himself decided not to pursue that route. The reasons given were the specialist subject matter of the investigation and the functions to be performed by the individuals retained, the qualification and expertise required and the short timeframe. Given that he was obliged to report within six months Mr. Nyberg did not wish to spend time in a competitive tender when he could decide himself whom he wanted to assist him in his investigation.

I do not know about Mr. Nyberg's familiarity with the country. I do not know whether he had business and banking contacts prior to his arrival. I met him on the day he presented his draft report to me. He seemed to me to be a very stable kind of man who would be a person of good judgment. That is my only experience of him. He was very interesting in his analysis of what happened. A lot of people said he should have named names but if he did so the work being carried out by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Garda Commissioner and Mr. Paul Appleby might not have been able to proceed. He stayed away completely from names lest he would prejudice any parallel investigation that was being conducted.

See this speech in context