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

I move:

That Dáil Éireann shall consider the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts entitled Examination by Committee of Public Accounts of NAMA’s Sale of Project Eagle, copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 15 March 2017.

I thank the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts for presenting this report to the Dáil today and the committee members for their efforts in producing this report. As a former Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, I fully appreciate the important role the committee plays. As Members are aware, I have taken issue with certain conclusions expressed in the report regarding meetings with Cerberus, which is where I will begin my contribution. I will then touch on the report more generally and will conclude with a few words regarding the establishment of a commission of investigation which will no doubt form part of today’s discussion.

Turning to the report’s criticisms of my involvement in the transaction, I am encouraged that the Committee of Public Accounts has accepted my long-standing position, derived from law, that in these circumstances it was not within the powers of the Minister for Finance to direct NAMA to halt the sales process. However, I am disappointed that, having resiled from this previously held position, the Committee of Public Accounts has conjured up other unjustified and unfounded criticisms of me and my officials, that these criticisms were leaked to the press, presumably by a member of the Committee of Public Accounts and that these criticisms found their way into the final report. I can only assume that the information was leaked in an effort to secure its inclusion in the final report, an action which, unfortunately, has politicised and compromised the integrity of the Committee of Public Accounts itself. The very fact that there was not unanimous agreement among Committee of Public Accounts members raises the question of whether such a criticism can be acceptable.

I and my Department refute absolutely the claims in the report that I and my officials acted inappropriately in meeting with Cerberus in March 2014. Following the leak and prior to publication of the report, I wrote to the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts outlining my strong objection to any such finding against me or my officials. I remain shocked that the Committee of Public Accounts disregarded due process and did not offer me or my officials the opportunity to discuss the committee's concerns even after I requested such an opportunity prior to the report’s finalisation.

The minute of the meeting with Cerberus is available on the Department of Finance website. It is there to read for all who are interested. It is accepted that there is a clear legal separation between the Minister for Finance and NAMA’s commercial operations and I am grateful that the Committee of Public Accounts has acknowledged this. It is entirely appropriate that I, as Minister for Finance, would meet the chairman of a major international investment fund, a former US Secretary of the Treasury, at his request, while he was in Dublin on business. It is also entirely appropriate that my officials would meet representatives of a firm which has a general investment interest in Irish assets. As the published documentation confirms, the meeting was arranged at the request of Cerberus and was high-level in nature. It would be very unusual and indeed inappropriate for any Minister for Finance not to meet such individuals and firms. I and other Ministers have many similar meetings in the course of our ministerial duties.

The meetings did not alter the fact that neither I nor my officials were involved in the Project Eagle sales process, which I believe the Committee of Public Accounts acknowledges. Had the Committee of Public Accounts invited me or the officials who attended to discuss these meetings, it would have better understood this position prior to publishing its report. It is disingenuous for certain members of the Committee of Public Accounts and the Chairman to question my integrity and that of Department of Finance officials, accusing us of not being forthcoming in our testimony. I would like to set out the facts that will reveal what has been nothing less than political grandstanding by certain members of the committee.

In response to parliamentary questions from Deputy Michael McGrath on 14 July 2015 and 24 September 2015, I provided information regarding the March 2014 meetings with Cerberus. That was over 12 months before I was asked to attend at the Committee of Public Accounts. On 3 of November 2015, all documents relating to the meetings with Cerberus were released to a journalist under a freedom of information request. On 20 November 2015, during their first meeting on the matter, Department of Finance officials provided records relating to Project Eagle to the Comprtoller and Auditor General, including all documents relating to the meetings with Cerberus in March 2014. The Comptroller and Auditor General and Deputy Michael McGrath had, in the public domain, all of the information about the meetings with Cerberus almost 12 months before I was invited to appear on a voluntary basis before the Committee of Public Accounts. The meetings with Cerberus were not an area of concern in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on Project Eagle published on 5 August 2016. He was provided with information regarding the meetings but he never mentioned any meeting with Cerberus in his report, so we must conclude that this meeting did not cause him any concern.

On 6 October 2016, during my appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts, committee members raised no questions regarding meetings with Cerberus. On 12 October 2016, following my appearance, the Committee of Public Accounts requested certain follow-up information from me. No information was requested regarding the meetings with Cerberus. On 3 November 2016 I responded to the Committee of Public Accounts request for information. Unsolicited and in the spirit of openness to assist the Committee of Public Accounts in its work, I provided all records which had been previously provided to the Comptroller and Auditor General in 2015. This included all documents relating to the Cerberus meetings. This correspondence was published on the Department of Finance website and remains publicly available. On 10 November 2016 Department of Finance officials, each of whom had attended the meetings with Cerberus in March 2014, appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts. The Committee of Public Accounts, which at this point had received the full documentation relating to the meetings, raised no question regarding these meetings during the many hours of questioning of my officials.

On 21 November 2016, the Committee of Public Accounts wrote to me requesting full details of my meeting with Cerberus in March 2014. On 8 December 2016, I responded to the request of the Committee of Public Accounts indicating that the details of these meetings had already been provided to the Committee of Public Accounts on 3 November 2016. I suppose I should have told it the Comptroller and Auditor General had got copies of everything a year previously. Since Project Eagle was the subject of its inquiry, I thought it would have had access to any documents the Comptroller and Auditor General had examined in bringing forward his report.

It is clear that, contrary to allegations made by some Committee of Public Accounts members, my officials and I were forthcoming and have nothing to hide. We have provided the information regarding these meetings a number of times to various parties, and no questions were ever raised. Indeed, I want to take specific issue with comments made by the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts in a "News at One" interview on the day the report was published. Deputy Fleming noted in regard to my appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts that I "chose not to be open and upfront". In his interview, he gave the impression that I had deliberately concealed the fact that I had met Mr. John Snow of Cerberus and that this was why the Committee of Public Accounts did not ask me about the meeting during the five hours of evidence I gave before it. The facts I have just outlined give the true position. Long before I appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy Fleming's colleague, Deputy McGrath, had been informed twice in replies to parliamentary questions of my meeting with Cerberus and the Comptroller and Auditor General had been informed in the course of his scrutiny of Project Eagle. If the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts was doing his job properly, he should have established these facts before he made allegations against me. In light of the false allegations made by Deputy Fleming in his RTE interview on the day the report was published, I am formally requesting that he clarify his position at the next meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts. I ask the Deputy tonight to withdraw this comment and reflect this on the record of the House.

See this speech in context