Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Frankly, I find it incredible that the Taoiseach could come in here on a Tuesday and say to me that he has not read the article in question. I find that very difficult to comprehend. Did anybody bring it to the Taoiseach's attention in his Department? Did the Minister, Deputy Noonan, ring him about it? Did anybody alert him to the fact that Government memos were going to be released under freedom of information and that the article in The Sunday Timescontained such very serious assertions? It was stated:

Arguably, no payment should have been made to shareholders given the precarious position the company was in. Examinership would appear to have been a reasonable option.

In addition, trade buyers were excluded and there was the question of "whether [having] the company running the process was the correct decision", and so on.

The Taoiseach is leader of the country and is in charge of Government. There are people out there in mortgage arrears whose cases I have been raising with the Taoiseach for the last month. They do not get paid off when they owe a bank a lot of money. We are talking about a company that owed €150 million. The advisers on the sale of the company recommended that they got the top end - €5 million. Five of the shareholders were clients of this company. This was all going on under the Taoiseach's nose and he was just oblivious to the whole thing, if we are to believe him today.

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