Sir, – In The Irish Times of April 24th the following was stated: "One of O'Brien's companies, Millington bought Siteserv three years ago for €45 million, costing the taxpayer €110 million in the process" ("Q&A: What do I need to know about Siteserv and IBRC?").
It is simply untrue that the purchase of Siteserv by Mr O’Brien’s company cost the taxpayer €110 million.
As a consequence of the then government’s decisions on rescuing the banks in 2008 and 2009, the taxpayer in effect bought the loan book of Anglo-Irish. This included €150 million, representing loans to Siteserv. Since, as your piece states explicitly, there was no prospect of these loans being repaid, the reality was that the taxpayer at this point was out of pocket by that amount, as the loans had no significant commercial value. In respect of Siteserv, the government incurred a loss on behalf of the taxpayer of €150 million.
When Siteserv was sold in 2012 for €45 million, the taxpayer received €40 million (and the shareholders received €5 millions). The taxpayers’ accumulated losses derived from acquiring Anglo-Irish were reduced by €40 million. As a matter of arithmetic, that is a gain to the taxpayers of €40 million, not a loss of €110 million. – Yours, etc,
MOORE McDOWELL,
Delgany, Co Wicklow.
Sir, – Catherine Murphy TD is a credit to Irish politics, better than a dozen Ministers or TDs any day. Her dogged persistence in pursuing freedom of information (FOI) requests has focused political attention on the controversial sale of Siteserv and prompted an informative Dáil debate about the whole labyrinthine process.
If we had a truly “open and transparent” Government, which is what Fine Gael promised before the last election, there would no need for Ms Murphy to pursue the issue and drag the truth to the surface via a painstaking FOI quest for the truth. – Yours, etc,
JOHN FITZGERALD,
Callan, Co Kilkenny.