Results 32,461-32,480 of 33,581 for speaker:Catherine Connolly

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: Chairman, I hope my presence here does not ensure that we are back in the Dáil next week because I am looking forward to spending a week in Galway. In any event, I had better ask a good question. I wish to follow on from Deputy McDonald's questions on this matter. Obviously the witnesses can accuse us of having the benefit of hindsight. I cannot tell the witnesses how many times I...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: All right.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: Surely the legal team would have a role in dealing with conflicts of interest.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: There is a lot more than just Mr. Cushnahan involved.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: I referred one of the conclusions, but there is a whole chapter on conflicts of interest. It leads on to Cerberus.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: My difficulty is that I have only so many minutes. I am referring to the six conclusions and would have expected the witnesses to deal with each of them.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: Yes, I accept that. Let us look at the board. I will go to a different chapter, the one on the sales process, about which the Comptroller and Auditor General highlighted a number of controls in dealing with the same problems. Page 72 deals with something of which Mr. Collison has some experience as he made a comment on the bidders. The report states that on 13 February 2014 "there was a...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: That is correct.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: Absolutely. We will come to Mr. Collison's role. He cannot comment because he was not on the board.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: Is that an accurate reflection of what happened at the board meeting?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: There is no sense that the board was taking this issue seriously. There had been a huge breach of confidentiality.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: Yes, it was mentioned in the newspapers that PIMCO had approached NAMA.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: I do not think the witnesses have read the report. I do not think NAMA has read it. It zoomed in on the figures of 5.5% and 10% and placed a spin on them. "Spin" might be a strong a word, but that is what I believe. At every opportunity NAMA has come forward and zoomed in on what is a difference of opinion, as opposed to focusing on what the report actually states.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: I will continue by reading the last paragraph on page 72:Following the media coverage, NAMA and/or Lazard received enquiries from a further ten firms. Two of these - Goldman Sachs and Fortress - were allowed to enter the process. Lazard informed NAMA that it had excluded the other eight firms, seven of whom it said were well known to Lazard and had excellent reputations. They were just...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: When I read about it, I see a very limited approach. NAMA started with three bidders. As we have said so often, it was kept deliberately small for a small number of people. Other firms were excluded. Mr. Collison has said that if there had been an underbid, there would have been a lot more bidders. In reality, a lot more bidders were kept out because it did not suit the strategy, but...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: I do not accept that and do not accept Mr. Collison's interpretation. NAMA actually told Lazard what to do. It guided it. This is one of the points made in the report. If Mr. Collison reads it, he will see that the Comptroller and Auditor General is saying it differed from other types of sale, that Lazard had a very limited role compared with other sales advisers and that it was told what...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: You did-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: According to the board, NAMA directed Lazard. According to the minutes, NAMA told Lazard what to do. It was set out what it should and should not do.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: I am going back - I will be very careful - to Brown Rudnick. It is the committee's understanding the board did not know until 2 or 3 April that Brown Rudnick and Tughans were involved with Cerberus. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (25 Oct 2016)

Catherine Connolly: I was trying to be fair to the witnesses. Someone probably knew before that date. It seems, based on the documentation submitted today by Deputy Mick Wallace, into which I have not had a chance to go in detail, that Cerberus is clearly stating NAMA knew about the legal people it had employed well before the bid was accepted.