The news that Ferguson Marine is to get a further £14 million investment from the Scottish Government was welcomed by our Business Editor, Ian McConnell, who argued that the yard has been used as a political football for years.

Today, however one of our readers contends that what is desperately needed is proper scrutiny of what has been going on.

Ian McNair of Cellardyke writes:

"Ian McConnell, writing about the Ferguson Marine investment, tells us that 'of course, what has gone wrong has to be scrutinised', and thereby lies the rub. Exactly what scrutiny has there been? Lots of heat but very little light.

What we know is we've spent more than £300 million on two yet-to-sail ferries at least eight years late. In anyone's estimation this has been a failure. What we don't know is why.

CMAL blames Jim McColl's Ferguson's, which in turn blames CMAL for design and specification changes. Questions remain unanswered about the actually legality of the awarding of the contract. Meanwhile the Scottish Government has blocked an inquiry.

Several committees of good people have tried to get to the bottom of this debacle but have been thwarted by Scottish Government obfuscation and secrecy. The fact is we, the taxpayers, deserve detailed answers to many unanswered questions before we throw further money into the unknown.

This is not doomsaying, this is common sense. Indeed scrutiny is exactly what we need but have yet to see.

I resided and worked in Inverclyde for more than 30 years and know Port Glasgow and Ferguson's very well and no one more than I wanted Ferguson's to succeed, but surely not at any cost and without scrutiny. Perhaps Mr McConnell would like to enlighten us with exactly what went wrong and what has been done to fix it. Kate Forbes and John Swinney have been at the heart of this fiasco but have provided no answers. It's high time they did. Open and transparent government this is not."