Mr. Frank Daly:

The 500 staff are not NAMA staff; they are bank staff working in the IBRC, AIB and Bank of Ireland. We can supply the committee with accurate figures. There are approximately 200 staff in the IBRC, 200 in AIB and 100 in Bank of Ireland. Section 131 of the Act provides for service level agreements with all of the participating institutions which govern the way in which the institutions service NAMA and the loans they manage on its behalf. We have a very close working relationship with and a firm hold on these NAMA units in the three institutions. NAMA people are in the institutions as part of the teams and there is considerable oversight. Day-to-day issues will arise in any relationship, but at this stage we do not have significant issues with the performance of the units. One issue that arises from time to time has to do with turnaround times for credit and sales requests which we monitor very closely. In respect of the 195 debtors managed by NAMA, the average turnaround time is about 4.7 working days, while it is a little longer in the institutions, at seven days. We are always trying to improve on these times.