Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sticking to the speech. The Minister for Finance came in here and used the words "conjured up" in his speech regarding the Committee of Public Accounts, which is an unjustified and unfounded criticism. He said the same thing later on. Once again, the Minister, like NAMA, has absolutely refused to deal with the substance of the report, in this case, its 32 conclusions. I missed none of the Committee of Public Accounts meetings. On every single occasion I asked each witness if he or she had read the report. It appears to me that NAMA and the witnesses who came before the committee had not, by and large, read the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. They had decided on their strategy in the paper before they ever came before the Committee of Public Accounts. The Comptroller and Auditor General had found, before us, that there were questions about the financial outcome of the loan sale process and the management of conflicts of interest. The committee then went through all of these and gave a chance to every single witness to come before the committee. Not once did politics raise its head in that committee room until the very final vote regarding words.

What Deputy Cassells has said is very important. There was a disagreement over whether it was "advisable." If we agreed with Fine Gael colleagues that "advisable" was the word, there would be no split vote.

What the Minister is trying to do here, as he has already tried to do with NAMA, is lead the narrative. Let me lead the narrative, from what I have seen. There are most serious questions to be asked about the sales process, the failure to follow up on a conflict of interest, the restriction of the number of bidders, and any other number of flaws. There is, unfortunately, a serious need for an inquiry. The major reason is the failure of this Chamber once again, and particularly of the Government Deputies, to hold NAMA to account. They have allowed a Minister come in here tonight and not deal with a single one of the report's conclusions, except to misread its conclusion in respect of himself and those he describes as his officials. We have used very mild language to describe it as "procedurally inappropriate" that he should meet with one of two bidders.

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