Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Fennelly commission is due to report this year by the end of March 2017. There may be some slight delay on that depending on the responses received by Mr. Justice Nial Fennelly. It is due by the end of March and the cost to date has been €3.106 million. On IBRC, the timeframe on the final report for the first module of its work regarding the Siteserv transaction is the end of December 2017. With regard to Project Eagle, I met the party leaders on all of that. We felt it better that, as the report of the Committee of Public Accounts is pending publication, we should wait to see what its observations or recommendations are in respect of Project Eagle. We need to consider the findings and conclusions of that report when it is published. It may contain information that would need to be factored in to terms of reference for the commission of investigation we have already agreed on. We would need to consider the likelihood of a commission of investigation being able to get any further relevant information for the commission about the issues involved, bearing in mind the large amount of evidence it has already received from NAMA and from other interested parties. It is an important point to bear in mind given the substantial funding involved. There is €4.7 million in the Department's Vote for 2017 and this includes provision for the Fennelly commission due to report at the end of March, as I have said, and the first element of the Siteserv module of IBRC, due by the end of this year. While there was an element of €10 million provided for the proposed commission of investigation into Project Eagle, based on the estimated cost of the IBRC commission it is not possible at this stage to be sure what might actually fall due for payment in 2017. If the funding available is not sufficient, we will have to find the resources from within the Department or somewhere else.

I have referred before to the permanent structure. The Law Reform Commission made recommendations on this and considered it was not appropriate. However, it did consider there were some other valuable elements and I am considering those.

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