Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

From what we believe from Frank Daly, the Minister was informed on 13 March that one of NAMA's biggest sales processes had a potential conflict of interest. I know from the Minister's briefing notes which we obtained under a freedom of information request that this potential conflict of interest would have shone negatively on NAMA. The Minister was informed of this fixer's fee, this three-way split between Brown Rudnick, Tughans and Frank Cushnahan, the adviser on the Northern Ireland board of NAMA. What did the do at that point? Was he not concerned that the sale process should be halted? What reassurances did he seek that Mr. Cushnahan would not continue to be involved in the sale process as it moved along, as the allegations today suggest that these same parties or some of them were involved in the sale by Cerberus.

Is the Minister concerned, as stated in his briefing document in regard to the potential conflict of interest, that there should at least be a commission of investigation here? At the very least should the Minister not call, as he did for example when the ECB was refusing to present itself before the banking inquiry, for NAMA to present itself before the investigation currently ongoing in the Northern Ireland Executive? Can the Minister give us some specific details as to why he was not concerned, knowing there was a €15 million fixer's fee involved here with these firms and one of the advisers? Was it because they would drop out and, hopefully, Mr. Cushnahan or Tughans would not get involved with the other buyers and we would settle for whatever words of reassurance they would give us, such as "sure it was only €4 billion worth of assets involved in the sale"?

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