Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It would not have been necessary to establish a commission of investigation into certain matters pertaining to transactions entered into by IBRC if the Government had properly answered questions here in the Dáil. I have been asking these questions for over three years now. I will repeat some of them today. In 2012, an Teachta Pearse Doherty and I submitted a range of parliamentary questions about IBRC. The responses were deliberately vague and obstructive. Some of these questions related to IBRC hiring Blackstone to advise it on the sale of assets. As the Taoiseach well knows, Blackstone is an American vulture capital group, which was seeking to buy IBRC's loan book. Anybody could see the obvious conflict of interest at the heart of this arrangement, but the Minister and the Taoiseach indicated in their responses that they had no difficulties with any of this. The Taoiseach also refused to answer questions about the fees being paid to these advisers, as did the Minister. In November 2011, the Taoiseach met the head of Blackstone, Stephen Schwarzman, and his associate, Gerry Murphy. During this period, the Government appointed chair of NAMA's advisory board actually sought to appoint Gerry Murphy to this board. Again, the conflicts of interest are startling. This appointment was abandoned after Sinn Féin's parliamentary questions drew attention to the matter, but we still did not get answers to the questions we raised. Will the Taoiseach tell the Dáil what he discussed with the head of Blackstone, Mr. Schwarzman or with Mr. Murphy?

Did the Taoiseach raise concerns about the very obvious conflicts of interest in Blackstone taking on an advisory role with IBRC when it was already bidding for IBRC loans?

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