John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to move on to staff turnover. When Mr. McDonagh attended the committee in September, we spoke at length about the fact that one of the biggest deterrents to passing on information is the threat of prosecution under the Official Secrets Act as well as the NAMA legislation and contractual arrangements and so on. It is fair to say many civil servants are covered by the Official Secrets Act, but most of these do not deal with billions of euro. I accept that every mid-sized company runs the risk of an employee leaving and passing on information to a competitor. NAMA is described as the largest property management company in the world, but its senior staff seem to be leaving in considerable numbers. Mr. McDonagh gave the reasons he thinks that is the case the last day he appeared before the committee. Some people are asking whether these staff members are being head-hunted for their experience or their information - essentially, being poached by people who might gain adverse advantage from this knowledge.

I understand that under the National Asset Management Agency Act there is a lifetime prohibition on passing on information relating to the agency. I have been a Member of the Dáil for a while, however, and one has to ask how many civil servants have ever been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. I am not aware of too many since the Act was promulgated in 1963.

In the Dáil earlier this week, I spoke about transparency in the planning process. In my opinion, one of the problems we had in local authorities was that those adjudicating on one-off housing one day were adjudicating on developments worth tens of millions of euro the next. In some cases, those individuals, character-wise, were unsuitable to be dealing with such planning permissions, which we found out to our cost. I am not casting any aspersions whatsoever on NAMA staff but the question must be asked about the safeguards in place with regard to information that could be leaked.

At the last meeting, I remember Mr. McDonagh saying that the cooling-off period for people who left the agency would be extended from three to six months. Does he have any concerns with regard to the safeguards, particularly considering the amounts of money involved and the risks and temptations that might emerge?