Luís Montenegro, the PSD's leader in parliament, brought up in the fortnightly debate with the prime minister an exchange of correspondence between Domingues and Centeno published earlier in the day by online newspaper ECO. In it, the two men appear to agree that Domingues would not have to submit a declaration of income to the Constitutional Court - as is normally the case for public employees - in order to formally take up the post.

Montenegro recalled that in the last parliamentary debate two weeks ago the prime minister, António Costa, had responded to a question on the subject from PSD leader Pedro Passos Coelho that he could not explain Domingues's resignation and indeed found it strange.

“Doesn't the prime minister find it strange that your finance minister hid from you the content of the correspondence with the former chairman of Caixa or did he know after all?” Montenegro asked rhetorically.

In response, the prime minister picked up on the last part of the question without addressing the first part, relating to the minister of finance.

“Look, what's happening today in CGD is that it has been given the resources necessary to have the capital injection it needs so as not to be privatised as your government [in power from 2011 to 2015) wanted," Costa said.