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Updated 11.10pm
CATHERINE MURPHY HAS called for an independent inquiry into a number of large transactions by IBRC (formerly Anglo Irish Bank) prior to it being wound up two years ago.
The independent TD received documents from the Department of Finance today in relation to freedom of information requests.
She said the highly-redacted files, which she distributed to the media today, contradict responses to parliamentary questions she received from Finance Minister Michael Noonan.
In the documents, senior officials at the department express reservations about a number of “poorly executed” large transactions made by IBRC (Irish Bank Resolution Corporation), including the sale of Siteserv to the Denis O’Brien-owned company Millington.
Former chairman of Anglo, Alan Dukes, has in a statement this evening rejected any suggestions of impropriety in the sale of Siteserv, Newstalk reports.
TheJournal Politics / TwitterMurphy: A whistleblower told me Millington was initially not even considered to buy SiteServ #dail
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) April 21, 2015
Murphy said the files highlight that there were “serious problems in the relationship that existed between the IBRC, formerly Anglo, and the Department of Finance”.
She claimed that this likely played a role in the winding down of IBRC in February 2013.
In one memo, a senior department official states that “events over the past few months have led me to question the effectiveness of the management team in IBRC … I am concerned that the reputation of the IBRC and by extension the State has been damaged as a result of these events.”
One document states:
Siteserv is the subject of a separate memo but to summarise we are concerned with the quality of some of the decisions taken in respect of this transaction. The sale decision has raised a number of areas where we believe that decisions taken by IBRC resulted in a less than optimum return for the bank. The transaction has also been the subject of a number of PQs and press queries which further questioned the commercial rationale for some elements of the sale including payments made to existing stakeholders. We are recommending that the Chairman is asked to commission a full independent review in relation to the Siteserv transaction.
Murphy questioned whether Noonan was being genuine when he “insisted he was satisfied that the Siteserv deal represented the best deal for the State”.
“The documents I receive today really make me question whether or not the Minister really believed that was the case,” she told reporters.
The State lost €105 million due to the transaction, in which Millington bought SiteServ for €45 million in 2012. A subsidiary of the company, GMC/Sierra, went on to be awarded a large water metering contract.
“I am calling for a full, independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding this deal, and other large deals, as it appears to me to go to the heart of the problems that led to the very rushed winding up of IBRC on the infamous ‘prom night’.The citizens, who every day feel the brunt of Anglo’s problems in their pocket, have a right to know why such deals would have been done and who was a party to those decisions,” Murphy said.
During Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil this afternoon, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin praised Murphy for “doggedly” pursuing this issue. The Sunday Times also reported on the topic over the weekend.
Martin noted that Siteserv shareholders received €5 million at the time of the sale.
He asked Enda Kenny if he would initiate “a proper inquiry” into the matter. The Taoiseach said he didn’t read the Sunday Times article, adding: “I don’t have the detail to reply in detail to you … I don’t want to say anything that I can’t stand over here.”
Kenny said it would be better for Noonan to reply to Martin directly.
Martin said he found it “very, very difficult to comprehend” that Kenny hadn’t seen the article
Did Minister Noonan ring you about it? Did anybody alert you?
He said that if Kenny was telling the truth he was “oblivious” to serious issues “going on under your nose”.
Kenny responded by saying he doesn’t “have the opportunity to read every newspaper article”, adding that officials in each department deal with Freedom of Information requests independently of his office.
The Taoiseach said that when IBRC approved the Siteserv deal in March 2012, it was not required to inform Noonan prior to the sale as the 2009 framework under which it was operating did not include any specific monetary thresholds.
However, a spokeswoman for Murphy was quick to point out that a new framework, under which IBRC would have had to discuss the issue with the finance minister, was “ready to go”.
Anne-Marie McNally / TwitterEnda tries to vindicate IBRC's handling of Siteserv sale by saying they operated under 2009 Framework. New framework was ready to go
— Anne-Marie McNally (@amomcnally) April 21, 2015
Murphy said earlier:
There is such a web here. There is serious role for the media to play in untangling that web and making it accessible to the public. There’s a limit to what a slightly OCD independent member of the Oireachtas can do on this.
Department of Finance response
A spokesperson for the Department of Finance said Murphy’s claim that “all along the Minister [Noonan] has insisted he was satisfied that the Siteserv deal represented the best deal for the State….” is incorrect.
They said Noonan was “given assurances from the Chairman [former TD Alan Dukes] and CEO [Mike Aynsley] of IBRC at a meeting which he attended on 25 July 2012 that the transaction had been thoroughly assessed by the IBRC Board and that the Management and Board of IBRC were satisfied that the transaction was managed in the best manner possible to achieve the best result for the State”.
In a statement this evening, Alan Dukes categorically rejected suggestions of any impropriety in the March 2012 SiteServ sale by IBRC.
Newstalk reports that Dukes said the Department of Finance was kept informed, though later became concerned about the deal.
The spokesperson said that “to help prevent such concerns regarding the quality of decisions taken by IBRC management arising in the future”, Noonan requested a further meeting take place between the former Secretary General of the Department of Finance, John Moran, and the then CEO of IBRC.
This meeting took place in August 2012. The spokesperson said: “At that point, the transaction had been concluded and no further action could have been taken.”
As part of the deal with the Troika, the government put in place new frameworks to ensure proper handling of the sale of assets (on 29 March 2012).
A senior Department of Finance official was seconded to IBRC in October 2012 to “explore opportunities for deleveraging with a view to maximising the recovery for the taxpayer”, the spokesperson added.
They said this provided “greater oversight, given that a number of matters within IBRC at that time raised concerns with Department of Finance officials”.
‘Hen’s teeth’
Junior finance minister Simon Harris echoed these comments when answering Murphy’s questions about the issue in the Dáil this evening. He said the decision to liquidate IBRC was taken in the context of minimising the overall cost to the state.
TheJournal Politics / TwitterMurphy: Getting information on this is like finding hen's teeth #dail
— TheJournal Politics (@TJ_Politics) April 21, 2015
Murphy was not impressed with his response, saying she could have written it herself by piecing together the answers she got to previous parliamentary questions.
She also noted her disappointment that Noonan was not present to answer her queries directly.
Originally published: 16.29
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All the properties sold off by NAMA for pennies to investors would come in handy now why aren’t people held to account for this
@Will: Accountability is not something any irish politician has ever had to have. Calling to vote them out is not enough anymore. Where’s varadker now. Enjoying his rich life safe in the knowledge he will never face any responsibility for the many failings he had.
@Fat Bear: Pay rates for those working in house construction need to be higher than in politics.
@thomas molloy: Expect the opposite. They’ll bring in cheap, untrained foreign labour to build shoddy houses and give themselves bonuses and pay rises
@Will: NAMA made us money. Facts matter :)
@Will: We wouldn’t have needed NAMA if Fianna Fáil hadn’t bankrupted the country.
Politicians claim credit for some aspects of their time in power and completely erase other aspects, the FG/Lab govt of 2011 claim great credit for ‘getting us out of the clutches of the IMF’ but the truth is they accelerated that process by sever austerity and the shelving of house building as a priority of Govt when we would have exited the IMF in any case sometime later but they wouldn’t have been able to take credit for it in the lifetime of that Government. The roots of the crisis rest with that particular Government and it’s leaders who have since departed the scene to their holiday home or their holiday homes.
@Gerry Ryan: house building was shelved because the country was bankrupt thanks to FF, that’s why the IMF were here in the first place, you mong
@Fintan Pox: listen Pox, the IMF had money we could have accessed but chose not to, I outlined the reasons but maybe you’re challenged
@Gerry Ryan: the IMF were going to pump money into a property bubble? lol
Dont vote ff or fg is the answer. 100 years is enough
@martin finnegan: 100 years of prosperity, they definitely have my vote :)
@martin finnegan: FG definitely have my votes 1,2 and 3
Feel sorry for any young adults living at home with their parents, we are all living it at the moment, young people working & paying Tax, living at home unable to afford extortionate rents & knowing they won’t get a mortgage for extortionately priced Housing & will never own their own home. They watch them as Thousands enter the State weekly & once granted Status are put on a Housing list immediately. They also have to watch Roderic O Gorman promise those arriving own door accommodation within months, young working people have been shat on & abandoned by this three ring circus Coalition. Vote radically & get these duds out of Govt.
@SV3tN8M4: division, that’s all you offer. Pitting people off one another. Shame on you
@Kevin Kerr: He’s not pitting anyone against anyone you little clown. John always speaks the cold hard truth. Get a life you wimp.
@Marvin Dollery: of course he is. He is suggesting that migrants are treated better than the Irish population. So it is an attempt to demonise and isolate the migrant population. Classic playbook, you clown
@Kevin Kerr: he is speaking truth Kevin, on rte the other night was a woman who was working caring for her disabled child. She was unable to keep up the rent was evicted. Sat next to her was an immigrant who said she is the country 6 months and now has a 3 bed house off the state. It’s facts not the immigrants faults but the cabbages who run the country and force emigration it’s backward.
I lived at home all during college & then for the first 3 years working afterwards for varying reasons. It didn’t “delay my move into adulthood” at all. I paid rent to my parents, albeit a lot less than market but still something. I didn’t live in my teenage room but rather used my own money to redecorate it to suit my taste as young adult. I had a social life & went out. The only restriction was just letting my mam know via a text if I wasn’t going to be home at all. When I did move out, I could cook, clean & look after myself as well as any other 24 year old I knew. I think a lot of the time the problem lies where an adult moves back to their childhood room but does not change anything in that room from being a teen. And reverts to that behaviour at home.
@Susan Walsh: oh ffs…where to begin with that spiel!
@Susan Walsh: That’s a poor attempt at trying to justify the housing catastrophe. The lack of housing is an issue that government policies are responsible for. They’re running the Country into the ground bit by bit.
@Susan Walsh: Not everyone has a happy and supportive home environment. They have to get out and can’t.
We won’t be able to decorate our way out of this one, Susan
@Darth O’Leary: I wasn’t saying that there isn’t a housing crisis. Jaysus. I was literally just commenting on the piece that seemed to imply if you don’t move out at 18, you’re stunted as an adult which isn’t true.
@damien leen: how about the beginning. What is your problem with what I wrote?
@Marvin Dollery: eh I’m not justifying anything at all. I’m literally just saying that if you are living at home as an adult, then it is possible to not revert to behaving like a teen but requires effort. I didn’t say anything about the lack of housing or that people should live in their parents. I agree completely that there is a major lack of appropriate housing and affordable housing in the country and something needs to be done on that front.
@Susan Walsh: Ok Susan, thanks for clarifying.
@Ronan Mc: show me where I said anything suggesting that the lack of affordable housing isn’t a real or growing problem? No. I just made the point about how if you’re in your teenage room as an adult & reverting to acting like a teen, maybe do something about your behaviour and environment. Because unfortunately that might be all you have control over with the upwards cost of housing. I get that people need to get out and can’t but my comment wasn’t aimed at that or suggesting papering over the cracks. It was literally just saying that if you are in the situation of living at home as an adult, you do not have to resort to behaving like a teen or using that as an excuse to behave as such.
@Susan Walsh: Your comment is both sensible and reasonable. Don’t worry if it triggers a few dependent snowflakes, waiting for the government to maintain the umbilical chord through adulthood.
@Susan Walsh: Susan, can I ask you how your parents and yourself managed dinner times? I’m soon to face the bleak prospect of adult children stuck at home (a small one with that) and I wholeheartedly agree with your view that adult children living with their parents need to behave like adults. We have already discussed a token rent and bill share, minimal but enough to ensure that they start practicing paying their own bills. They are very good teens and help around so I’m not worried about this. Did you work out a planner for says you’d be home for dinner or not? Did you cook for yourself and if so did your own shopping with maybe a little dip in mammy’s cupboards? Thanks
@Susan Walsh: And that’s your idea of getting along and creating an independent life and family for yourself!
Pathetic
@Susan Walsh: I get ya. Only messing really. Didn’t mean to join a pile on. Have a nice evening
@Susan Walsh: When you’re in a hole, stop digging….
You might as well have commented ‘Well, I’m alright Jack.’ Don’t be surprised then that people didn’t like your comment.
@Susan Walsh: Yeah and if you were there long after those 3 years. Say another 10. What then?
@Susan Walsh: very well said. This article is just a whinge from people who have failed at life through being lazy and having too much of an ego.
@Susan Walsh: you have triggered the losers still living with their mom at 40 lol
@Susan Walsh: so what job did you have that would cover a 400,000 mortgage,or did mummy and daddy help with that as well .
Smacks of the Robert Troy school of bs
@sean weir: good God!! @susan walsh was only making a sensible point that IF people are in the situation of living at home for a while, it’s up to them to make an effort until the situation improves, and not regressing to teenage traits or expecting mammy to do the stuff
@Anne WG: So my rent amount included contribution to the overall household running so bills & food. If I wanted anything that was not the normal shopping my mam did, I’d buy it myself. We had 2 small fridges in the kitchen so I kept all my stuff on one shelf in one. In terms of being included for dinner. My mam would tell me what she was planning to make & ask if I wanted some. If I did, grand. If not, I’d just either make myself something before or after my parents had gotten theirs. If I wasn’t going to be home for dinner, I’d just drop a text saying such.
@sean weir: no my Mam didn’t help & my dad passed away when I was in my early 20′s. I’m the daughter of a primary school teacher & a nurse so no extra money from them growing up. I’m an accountant by profession & the only way I got a mortgage was by saving like a dog & having a partner on a similar salary. And being lucky enough to buy pre-kids. I recognise I was lucky to get a mortgage & to have a home to call my own so less of the nasty please. And no I didn’t buy until I was in my early 30′s so not like I walked out of home into a house of my own – I rented for the intervening years.
@Ronan Mc: I’m not in a hole. My comment had nothing to do with people stuck at home. It was literally about the idea that if you don’t move out at 18 you’re stunted as an adult which I fundamentally disagree with.
@Paul M Doe: Ah no I don’t think that at all. I have friends who had to move back home to have any chance of saving with the way rents have gone & all of them would have good jobs. When rent is taking circa 50% of your take home pay it can be tough as hell to get savings to a level needed considering the house prices too. My only issue with the article is the idea that not moving out at 18 somehow stunts your growth as an adult.
@Thomas Sheridan: Explain how it is pathetic? I have a fully independent life & family now so yes I did create that. But did I make the most of a situation where I couldn’t afford to move out & rent? Yes I did. What’s pathetic is name calling people on the internet because you have a different experience to someone else.
@John Moore: I probably would have kept going the way I had. At the time I moved out, it was just myself & my mam in the house as my dad had passed away. It wouldn’t have been ideal by any stretch & I’m not saying it would have but my mam respected me as an adult at that point so we would have lived as 2 adults in the house together. I did have my own life totally outside my parents home between work, friends, dates & studying so that probably would have continued. I know I was lucky when I moved out as rents were lower by a lot than what they are now so I was able to. I recognise that luck. And I know people who lived similar to me with a parent until they’re mid-30′s & again it was almost like a shared house arrangement than a parent-child one. But that does take work.
@Susan Walsh: don’t waste your time on the hate filled clowns on here
Who are all these young peoples parents voting for ?
@Bertie: whoever they want to vote for.
What do you expect from this incompetent government when you have the FF leader stating there was no bank bailout and the FG leader saying he didn’t sign off on children’s hospital and that there was 18 other covid viruses. Wake up ppl!!
Wrong you’re stuck in your adolescence because of your sense of entitlement that you are owed everything and it should be handed to you.
@Ger Whelan: it seems like to concept of personal responsibility is lost on an increasing portion of society
@Ger Whelan: agree. If you want something bad enough you got to work for it, there’s no short cuts. Go where the money is.
@Ger Whelan: And there it is… there’s always a Ger Whelan type in the comments coming out with drivel like “back in my day yada yada yada” and “young people these days don’t know how to work etc. etc.” Ger, I’m guessing you came from a generation where 1 income per household was enough to buy a house, and you didn’t need a Masters degree as a minimum to get a good job, so you haven’t a clue.
@Les Whinin: Oh les I do have a clue. For example I interviewed 4 lads aged 18-20 for an apprenticeship. Not one of them came prepared. 3 didn’t even know what kind of apprenticeship it was for. None had any questions about the job or what we do as a company. The only questions they asked was how much does the job pay, the working hours, time off etc etc etc. one brought his mother into the interview for moral support and asked would i be willing to pay her for driving him to work and wait outside to help him. One wanted me to pay for his driving lessons and driving test and help with his insurance as he’ll need a car to get to work. All 4 interviews were a complete waste of my time. All they wanted was to know what was in it for them.
@Ger Whelan: one example, Ger of 4 lads that you didn’t employ. What about the ones that you do employ? Do they all have a sense of entitlement too? You do agree that there is a housing crisis, and that the cost of housing is unaffordable for many, right? Advocating for government and policy makers to fix this does not equate to a sense of entitlement
@Les Whinin: good post, councillor!
@Ger Whelan: I always make sure to interview a millennial when filling a position. I do it as a means to justify why I will never employ people from generation lazy
But I guess the country will end up with the same old same old!! Very sad that it is now unrecognisable from when I was growing up.
It may or may not be politicians fault that there is a housing crisis. Blaming them for everything only puts us in their debt so to speak. We’ll never be strong as a people with this behaviour.
@JP: you can’t blame politicians for the laziness and entitlement of useless millennials
I’m 86 ,we all had to spread our wings,go to England,come back and buy whatever we could afford in houses and build them over the years and we didn’t resort to the bank of ” Mum & Dad.”
We need endless refugees so they can build houses for all the new refugees
Get roderic out at the least might have some hope the greens are running this country into the ground
Demand a Referendum to amend the Constitution like France, Germany, Holland, Sweden …
No one incl. Sinn Fein can solve the housing emergency unless the Referendum is passed:::
This is not a problem for young people its all age groups
@UNA NI MHATHUNA:
Demand a Referendum to amend the Constitution like France, Germany, Holland, Sweden …
No one incl. Sinn Fein can solve the housing emergency unless the Referendum is passed:::
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