Results 9,201-9,220 of 21,149 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: No, the parties concerned were still active and engaged and had been the architects of things. In regard to the term "prohibited from contacting the debtors" I take that kind of standard on its word.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Mr. Long appears to be suggesting that so long as the contact would be mediated through a third party or in some kind of-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: What is Mr. Long suggesting?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: That would therefore render null and void any job or responsibility that Lazard, as an organisation, would have had in terms of that piece of confidentiality and creating the wall between the bidder and the debtors.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: How is that relevant, even if that were the case? Lazard was taken on in the circumstances I have described as the loan adviser. One of the key elements signed off with NAMA is the issue around contact with debtors. I have put it to the witness, Cerberus has confirmed it and we know through the goings on with PIMCO that this was absolutely breached. It was decimated. It did not stand up...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: For the purposes of reassuring me, please tell me it was not a case of Lazard seeing what it wished to see and looking the other way in the course of this transaction as things unfolded. Please assure me that did not happen.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am not convinced by the earlier testimony given by the witness. He stated that when PIMCO withdrew, he was not hugely concerned because other parties and potential bidders had shown an interest before going cold and pulling away.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Yes, I heard that.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: No. I have a note and when asked by another Deputy Mr. Long said it withdrew, right enough, but he was not hugely concerned because others had been involved and had withdrawn.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I will go back to the verbal briefing. I assume when Mr. Ronnie Hanna initially gave Lazard a verbal briefing, PIMCO was part of that briefing.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I put it to Mr. Long that I think he is being disingenuous, with all due respect. PIMCO withdrawing from this was a horse of a very different colour from others that may have shown an interest at some point. Lazard would have known that as it was briefed at the get-go by Mr. Ronnie Hanna that PIMCO had made this reverse inquiry, it was front and centre, it was the most active bidder and the...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I understand that but Lazard was aware of its significance and centrality in this process. Mr. Ronnie Hanna would have said it, would he not?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Mr. Long has conceded, or put on the record, that PIMCO enjoyed an advantage over other bidders.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: He is accepting that it is the case. Of course, that advantage accrued to PIMCO because NAMA afforded it that advantage.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Hang on a minute, Mr. Long. Nobody else was selling this portfolio. The only people who could have conferred that advantage were in NAMA.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: As the witness knows, it was not just about access to the data room. PIMCO had access to debtor information and so on and so forth. I accept Lazard could not have known that at the time. That is not my point at all. Mr. Long remains resolute in a position that there was competitive tension and this was a competitive process. That is entirely at variance with his acceptance that PIMCO...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Maybe we just have different views of what represents a competitive process? Perhaps I should have used the term "fair competition" or a "fair competitive process". One cannot claim fair competition if one party enjoys an advantage, which Mr. Long has conceded.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Does Lazard have a different definition of "open competition" than any legal definition of open competition? It is very firmly rooted in fairness, equality of access to information and processes and so on. I do not understand the basis for Mr. Long's claim any longer for-----

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Public Transport (22 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: 535. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his Department's plan for the maintenance and restoration of Broadstone Station, Dublin 7; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that a wall has been erected in front of Broadstone Station; and if so, the reason for this wall. [35906/16]

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (17 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I know we cannot cover everything in the work programme but that is a really critical issue in terms of the use of public resources and regulation generally and is certainly something I would be most keen for us to focus on. Notwithstanding all this work, I do not know if we would be in a position to start indicating when we might turn to an issue such as that.