Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response. The outstanding issue and the main point I would like him to bring back to the Minister is that the contiguous companies being granted the contracts should not be held liable for the sins of their predecessor, MFG. As the Minister of State has said, they have not been given some of the files, so they do not know what is or is not in them. It seems very unfair that they are being told they must sign a contract of liability for all of those files and projects, despite not knowing what is involved in them. It is incumbent on the Minister of State to say to the Minister that he should not insist on this. The companies should take on the files and projects and process them as much as possible, but they should not be held liable for any work not done or not done properly by MFG. This would move the process on more quickly and would ensure the people who deserve payments will get them and the programme can move forward quickly.