Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I have not. They are not matters in dispute. It is on public record at the Committee of Public Accounts and has been confirmed by the parties that €15 million was set aside. The legal firm Tughan's has confirmed that it retrieved the sum of €7 million. It was supposedly only employed for four weeks. Are complex legal arrangements involved? They must have been very complex to receive a payment of €7 million for four weeks work, yet it does not raise a concern for the Government. The Minister must be joking; it is an absolute scandal. It serves certain people's interests to have the Committee of Public Accounts or the Northern Ireland finance committee looking at these affairs because they do not have the expertise to examine them. If that expertise was available, why do we have a banking inquiry? Why not let the finance committee look at the issue? Why was there a separate investigation into the matter of penalty points and the Guerin commission considering that the Committee of Public Accounts had already looked at it? These are big money projects which have a huge impact on the taxpayer in the State. I really think the Government should be asking these questions when NAMA took the decision to remove PIMCO from the process. What statutes were breached? Did they include the NAMA Act or the foreign corrupt practices Act in the United States? This story is only stating and it has very great potential to further destabilise the situation in the North. It will also transfer to this side of the Border.

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