Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Bill 2015: First Stage

Deputy Catherine Murphy: I move:

That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993

in order to make an addition to the First Schedule, to expand the areas under which an examination under section 9 may be

conducted, and to provide for related matters.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Bill 2015 proposes to extend the functions and powers of the Comptrol-

ler and Auditor General to cover IBRC. It was the Taoiseach who ﬁrst suggested that the Comptroller and Auditor General review

the Siteserv sale process at which time it was pointed out to him that the IBRC does not come within the Comptroller and Audi-

tor General’s remit. With this Bill, I am attempting to address that problem by broadening the remit of the Comptroller and

Auditor General. The reason I anticipate the need to involve the Comptroller and Auditor General, if not a full commission of

inquiry which latter might well be a better option, is that the Government has got this matter badly wrong. That is not least

because most of the key players in the Siteserv saga have links with KPMG and the eventual purchaser and vice versa. It is a

web of connections and conﬂicts that requires outside eyes to unravel.

I have no doubt that the special liquidator is more than capable of carrying out such a review, but his direct involvement in

the sale process, his relationship with the eventual purchaser of Siteserv and his current actions in the High Court in support-

ing Mr. Denis O’Brien against RTé place him in a position where there is, at the very least, a perceived if not an actual conﬂict

of interest. The review is not conﬁned to Siteserv, but that is the transaction that prompted a review in the ﬁrst instance. I

worry about the transactions that have been excluded from the review given what that we now know that in the ﬁnal months

before prom night, the relationship between the Department and IBRC had completely broken down. If deals were being done

without the knowledge or input of the Minister, we must know what those were. We are now aware, for example, that the former

CEO of IBRC made verbal agreements with Denis O’Brien to allow him to extend the terms of his already expired loans. We also

know that the verbal agreement was never escalated to the credit committee for approval. I am led to believe and would wel-

come clariﬁcation by the Minister that the rates applicable to the extension were extremely favourable. I understand that Mr.

O’Brien was enjoying a rate of approximately 1.25% when IBRC could, and arguably should, have been charging 7.5%. Given

that we are talking about outstanding sums of upwards of €500 million, the interest rate applied is not an insigniﬁcant issue

for the public interest. We also know that Denis O’Brien felt conﬁdent enough in his dealings with IBRC that he could write to

Kieran Wallace, the special liquidator, to demand that the same favourable terms extended to him by way of a verbal agree-

ment be continued. We now have Kieran Wallace, who has been appointed by the Government to conduct the IBRC review,

joining with IBRC and Denis O’Brien in the High Court to seek to injunct the information I have outlined from coming into the

public domain. Surely, that alone represents a conﬂict.

In documents released to me under freedom of information, the Minister, his oﬃcials, the Central Bank and even the troika

acknowledge that IBRC – the former Anglo Irish Bank – is no ordinary bank and that there is a signiﬁcant public interest as the

bank was fully nationalised and was in wind-down mode. They all accept that this is the people’s money we are dealing with

and that there can be no dispute regarding the public interest in this. The same materials obtained under freedom of informa-

tion detail instances where the Minister can speciﬁcally intervene and issue a ministerial order that material matters have a

signiﬁcant public interest. Included in these material matters are instances that are outside the ordinary course of business.

I argue that what I have outlined here regarding verbal deals and extensions etc. are outside the normal course of business

and ask the Minister to exercise his right to intervene in the current proceedings to defend the public interest.

I have a motion on the Order Paper signed by the majority of Opposition Members calling for a debate on the proposed review.

I note that 45 Members have signed and more are welcome to. When I tried to raise the matter on the Order of Business, I was

silenced and told to take it up with my Whip. I am the Whip of the Technical Group and I had raised the matter at the weekly

Whips’ meeting. The Government Chief Whip told me that the Government would not be altering the KPMG review and that it

would not provide time to debate this issue. He suggested that we use Private Members’ time. This is not just an Opposition

issue; it is an issue for the whole House. It is an issue of serious public concern involving public money. If the Minister oppo-

site, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, got his hands on an extra €20 million, he would not have to think too hard about how to spend

it. I urge the Government to reconsider this matter and to give the Bill and the motion the time they deserve. It is in the public

interest to do so.

78 June 2015

Those Dáil Proceedings

Village

is resting the O’Brien-Desmond correspondence this month, as Denis has been just too busy to write