You can watch the Dail Committee discussion live

George Lee hasn't challenged John Mulcahy's figures.

None of them challenged the Minister's assertion that AIB and Bank of Ireland are not insolvent and that they are adequately capitalized.
 
Pat Rabitte has asked the very good question "You have been reported as supporting the Honohan amendment. Do you? "

The Minister's response:

The one difficulty is that it is formulated in terms of shareholding. I have discussed it with the Professor Honohan. We are examining it
 
The Minister is now discussing with Shane Ross about the future prices of the market. The Minister says that the yields are way above their long term trend. But he is passing Shane Ross over to John Mulcahy.

The Minister says we could not do this plan if we were not in the Euro.
 
I have caught up with Shane Ross's contribution just now and he was by far the most impressive. He only spoke for about 5 minutes, but he asked good questions.

He asked what evidence had they got that property prices were going to rise?

He asked could the bonds being used to buy the loans from the banks, be traded on the open market - yes they can.

He asked what an independent valuer was.
 
It is a terrible pity that there were so many contributors and that Joan Burton took such an unfair amount of the available time.

It would have been much better if it was a round table informal sort of discussion between the Minister and his advisers and say Richard Bruton, Joan Burton and Shane Ross. Possibly with Alan Shatter added.
 
The whole session is on RTE's website if you the time to want to watch it - over 4 hours!
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Brilliant spot canice - that is unnerving

From what I have read Lenihan turned in a tour de force but there is one area where I think he overplayed his hand. He says that nationalisation would mean significant compensation for bank shareholders. As a bank shareholder myself I would not be expecting much, the 10 fold increase in my share price over the last 6 months is due entirely to the government guarantee and the Nama project.