Results 10,061-10,080 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 (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: It is noted in the report that not alone in its terms of engagement was it required to produce one, but that in fact NAMA required a draft of such a letter at the very outset of the process. The Comptroller and Auditor General quotes at the tail-end the letter that it submitted. The Comptroller and Auditor General notes, quite correctly in my view, that it was restrictive and limited in...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Does one mirror the other?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Okay. Tell me this. Lazard was not informed of the fixer's fees and the difficulties, let us say, with PIMCO.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Is the witness convinced of that?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: This is what NAMA told the witness. Okay. The witness made extensive reference to the lack of property evaluations and he made a number of observations in terms of the minimum pricing for the portfolio. He notes that this minimum price of £1.3 billion was recommended to the board by the NAMA executive. What does the witness mean or to whom does he refer when he refers to the NAMA...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: What I am trying to get at is, in the absence of valuations and expert market advice - because NAMA did not procure any in the course of valuing the portfolio - who, not how, brought forward this £1.3 billion? On my reading, it came from asset recovery.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I just wanted to make sure that I was correct. On the conflicts of interest, one thing the witness said this morning intrigued me. He said that over time, Mr. Cushnahan declared to NAMA his involvement as an adviser to NAMA debtors. Am I to take from this that in a succession of statements of interest, the picture built around Mr. Cushnahan? It was not just an open one-off.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: In the same sequence?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Okay. Was PIMCO pushed or did it jump?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: What does the witness base that on?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Who keeps the minutes of the board meetings? Who takes them?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: And then they are cleared by the board.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Would it be fair to say that with Brown Rudnick and Tughans moving so speedily, so gracefully, from PIMCO to Cerberus, that Cerberus essentially inherited what Mr. McCarthy has referred to as the head start that PIMCO had enjoyed?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: The witness cannot comment on that. Did Mr. McCarthy find any evidence of meetings between NAMA board members or executives and Cerberus?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: He found no evidence of that.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: At what stage were the PIMCO success fees agreed, in Mr. McCarthy's understanding?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I asked that question for that reason. Mr. McCarthy probably cannot comment but I am now going to assume that, at that stage, the success fees were agreed. We will test that later. At no point is there a discussion or the record of a discussion around halting the sales process when all of this comes to light. Could Mr. McCarthy clarify that?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am just checking. I thank Mr. McCarthy for that. On the valuation of the assets, which did not happen prior to the disposal of the portfolio, who in NAMA would have had the responsibility to carry out or oversee the valuation of those assets? Which division?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: In the absence of that, who watches that piece of the puzzle internally?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (29 Sep 2016)

Mary Lou McDonald: Yes. Here is what I am getting at because time is limited. For Mr. McCarthy, a glaring omission is the lack of property valuations. Clearly, one cannot audit something that does not exist, so it is a nonsense to try to advance that argument. What I am trying to get at is who within NAMA, on the board or within the executive, should have spotted that glaring omission. I want to know...