Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Comptroller and Auditor General has made it absolutely clear that he and his office have no remit or authority in respect of IBRC. Therefore, when the Tánaiste appeals for a competent and appropriate authority, she should realise she is citing an office that is not capable of carrying out the investigation and does not have the remit to do so. I wonder why she is doing that.

We know Siteserv was sold off for €45 million. We know this was at a cost to the taxpayer of €105 million. That is a lot of money. We know the same legal advisers acted for both the purchaser and seller, and that shareholders got a sweetener of €5 million to ensure the deal went ahead. We know the Denis O'Brien company was not the highest bidder but yet emerged as the successful bidder. We know the Minister for Finance was briefed by the Department on serious concerns over this transaction and briefed equally on broader concerns over other transactions and the modus operandiof IBRC.

As the Tánaiste knows, the Siteserv deal is not the only one that saw debt written down. More than €64 million was written off in Blue Ocean Associates before being purchased by a consortium, also involving Denis O'Brien, as it happens. There was an almost 50% write-down of €300 million in debts in the purchase of Topaz. As it happens, Mr. O'Brien is also involved in this.

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