Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First of all, there was no difference of opinion between the Department of Finance and myself. My role and that of the Department of Finance was to hold IBRC accountable. It was difficult to do so because of the arrangements made by the previous Government in the legislation that nationalised IBRC, the former Anglo Irish Bank, and also because of relationship framework that was put in place. I understand why those arrangements were made because I remember the debate at the time and there were all sorts of allegations that there would be political interference. The attempt to protect against political interference went so far that it put me and my Department in a difficult position to exercise accountability. There were a lot of issues that concerned me but I was not asked about them in the questions. Any fair examination of the parliamentary replies will find that they were properly answered. The Deputy put down the first question and her leader put down the second question. At that stage, it was before I became aware of the Siteserv situation, so the Deputy got less than full information and so did Deputy Gerry Adams, but that was because I gave the Deputy the information that I had. After that, everything was answered in a lengthy fashion. Everybody knows that what one looks under freedom of information is not what one looks for in a parliamentary question.

See this speech in context