Results 9,341-9,360 of 21,440 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) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Okay.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Okay, but £15 million or £16 million is a huge amount of money and we can tell, even from the way the note was written and recorded, that PIMCO was angry and anxious about all of this. Ms O'Reilly did not ask, is the point I am getting at, as the senior legal person, to establish for herself and for the record when it was that Frank Cushnahan first had an engagement and involvement...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Let us not speculate on that.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I thank Ms O'Reilly for the context. Let the record reflect that Ms O'Reilly did not put the direct question to Mr. Rice as to when that engagement first happened. That is her evidence.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I do not accept that because I am establishing that she did not put the question. Can we move on to the-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: As it happens, in this scenario we are the people asking the questions. Anyway, the reference Ms O'Reilly refers to is record 3, where Ronnie Hanna asks when PIMCO became aware of the issue to which Mr. Rice replies that the Project Eagle process had been with NAMA for several months and he references April-May 2013. It is not very elegantly recorded but that is the date, the reference...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: When Ms O'Reilly refers to advisers, to whom is she referring?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I presume implicit in all of this is that Ms O'Reilly had no obligation to report elsewhere-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----in terms of any breaches or-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Fantastic. I can only take from this that Ms O'Reilly, as the person in charge and to keep everything on the straight and narrow, did not ask direct questions in respect of Mr. Cushnahan and the point at which he first gets involved or has an association or an arrangement with PIMCO. Ms O'Reilly has given reasons for that. Be that as it may, she did not ask the question. She is aware, in...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Obviously, had Ms O'Reilly done the requisite spade work or if my instinct was correct, which Ms O'Reilly denies, that she did know of Frank Cushnahan's involvement around April-May 2013, there would have been an obligation on her to report, would there not?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: There would have been, yes.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I thank Ms O'Reilly for that evidence because that gets to the heart of the matter. For anybody who is looking at this and asking why we are obsessing over who knew what and what was known about this April 2013 issue, that cuts to the quick of it because if the board did know, there were clear-cut obligations that had to be met. The concern I have, and that I believe others have, is that...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: It is in the minutes.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: In his opening statement Mr. Daly addressed the issue of other options and specifically spoke of the former head of asset recovery, Ronnie Hanna. He gave an account which he says covers that issue of other options. He had a concern that it was being misconstrued, that Mr. Hanna was trying to keep PIMCO in and so on. When did Mr. Daly talk to Mr. Hanna for the purposes of putting this together?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: How then does Mr. Daly speak today on his behalf?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: The manner in which Mr. Daly set things out is that he is offering an explanation on behalf of the head of asset recovery, who was Ronnie Hanna.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Taking these references in isolation, there has been an attempt to suggest that the head of asset recovery was seeking to persuade PIMCO to remain in the process. This was not at all the case.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: How does Mr. Daly know this?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (24 Nov 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: That is an interesting assessment of what happened. My reading of it is PIMCO saying, "We have a big problem here and we are letting you know we have a big problem. We are not sure that this can proceed. Can 'the business' go ahead with the three parties out of the loop?" Mr. Daly used the term "thinking out loud" earlier. I do not see any evidence of PIMCO seeking the acquiescence of...