Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Can I ask the Minister to explain the purposes of these amendments and the thinking behind them? We were presented this morning with 37 amendments to the National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009, including the Schedules to the Bill, along with another revised or amended version of the Bill. We have not received an updated explanatory memorandum from the Minister or his officials. Deputies on all sides of the House have repeatedly said that this Bill, which will cost €54 billion, represents the most significant financial decision the Dáil will ever make, outside the annual budgetary process. We have not been told who the amendments were moved by, or what the purposes of them are. I ask the Minister to set out in some detail the purposes of these amendments. How did they arise?

The Members of this Parliament are not being treated as well as contestants on a television quiz show. We would get more information if we were participants in a reality show. The officials have given the Opposition — certainly the Labour Party — no information about these amendments. It is a disgrace and in total contravention of the requirements of democracy. Some of the amendments relate to the valuation board, which will be responsible for valuing NAMA's assets. It will have a hugely important role in determining how NAMA performs and behaves. Some of the amendments are so confused, particularly the ones dealing with people employed or acting within NAMA who commit an offence, that they are a dog's breakfast. That is the only way I can describe it. Three amendments on the later pages are entirely contradictory with each other and with the sections 220 and 221 to which they relate. We are being asked to accept this without any information. If the Minister now has any information available that he could give to the Members of the Dáil that would be most welcome. It is disgraceful that we have had no briefing on these amendments.

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