Mary O'Rourke

The present Minister for Public Enterprise was Minister for Education in Charles Haughey's government. O'Rourke addressed at length a 1991 confidence debate in the Dail on the issue of Carysfort, but did not fully explain how she came to decide to contact UCD about buying the college in September 1990, less than a year after her department had declined an offer from the Sisters of Mercy to buy the property. She has never contradicted Haughey's statement that the purchase was her idea rather than his.

Charles Haughey

He took an intense interest in seeing the sale by Robert "Pino" Harris of Carysfort to UCD went ahead, but said the original idea was O'Rourke's and not his. In the Dail in 1991 he said Harris was "not a political friend of mine, of any kind". He also said: "the business management school in Carysfort will be there for many long years to come, providing benefits for this country, long after these petty slanderous allegations have been consigned to the dustbin of history."

Robert `Pino' Harris

Harris is a multi-millionaire businessman who has made his money principally through the importation and sale of Hino and Iveco trucks. He is known to have loaned trucks to Fianna Fail during the general-election campaigns that took place when Haughey was leader of the party. Large billboard advertisements were mounted on backs of the trucks, which travelled the streets encouraging votes for Fianna Fail. The Irish Times made efforts to contact him, but Harris did not return calls to his office.

Patrick Masterson

President of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, Dr Masterson was president of UCD in 1990 and had a number of meetings and contacts with Charles Haughey in the run up to the sale. In 1993 he told The Irish Times that there were "no unanswered questions about the sale". He would not discuss the sale for the purposes of this article, saying the matter was fully covered in a four-page statement issued in October 1991. A copy of the statement was received from UCD.