"Call me Peter," Peter Robinson declared to Sinn Féin's Máirtín Ó Muilleoir when he somewhat tongue in cheek asked the DUP leader how he should be referred to on Wdnesday while attending the Stormont inquiry into the sale of Nama's former Northern loan portfolio.
Mr Robinson has temporarily stepped aside as the North’s First Minister as a result of the current political crisis in Stormont that was ignited by an IRA-linked murder.
But for his appearance today at the inquiry, which has been running since July, he was courteously addressed by the inquiry members as either First Minister or Mr Robinson.
It was a composed and rather restrained performance from Mr Robinson who was at times visibly frustrated by certain lines of questioning – led chiefly by Mr Ó Muilleoir – and reoccurring asides about his memory recall.
Sporting a jaunty, DUP party-colours, themed tie he initially delivered a detailed statement to the inquiry during which he pre-warned members that they would do well to bear in mind that they were looking back at events that had taken place many years ago.
Mr Robinson said: “In preparing for this hearing I have done my best to recollect events although much of it is quite a distant memory.”
"I have also taken the opportunity to consult contemporaneous records to assist my recollection on those matters my evidence should be regarded in this context. I offer this explanation not chiefly as a defence against questions that the committee may have to ask me but as a possible explanation for the frailty of memory from which others may have suffered," Mr Robinon said.
This may or may not have been a reference to the earlier appearance by the North’s Deputy First Minister at the Stormont inquiry.
Martin McGuinness during his evidence giving session had taken great pains to stress that he had been “kept in the dark” in relation to certain elements of the Nama portfolio sale process.
But according to Mr Robinson who referred affably to “Martin” on several occasions this was not the case as he proceeded to indulge in a game of he said, she said list of examples which he suggested showed that Mr McGuinness was not kept in the dark.
However when references were to made to whether Mr Robinson’s own awareness of past events might be in any doubt in relation to Nama meetings he sharply declared he did not have any memory problems.
Indeed when one member of the inquiry politely inquired after his health he briskly replied; “still ticking”.
Despite the ongoing fog that still surrounds the sale of Nama’s former “Project Eagle” loans portfolio in the North, Mr Robinson was determined to convey today that he only had one vision throughout the entire sale process and that was to protect the best interests of Northern Ireland.
Whoever he may have met, talked to – regardless of who organised those meetings or who took part in them and even if he is somewhat sketchy on some of the details, Mr Robinson was, according to what he told the Stormont inquiry, only ever “motivated by what was in the best interests of our economy”.
