Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Friday, 20 December 2013

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
NAMA - Annual Report and Financial Statements 2012

11:50 am

Mr. Frank Daly:

To add to that, the penalties under the NAMA Act are pretty severe. On conviction on indictment there is a fine not exceeding €5 million and-or imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years. There is a deterrent in place. On top of all that, as this committee has discussed, there are the structural, logistical and IT arrangements in place in NAMA which make it extremely difficult for somebody to access widespread information. Access for staff is now confined and limited only to the information the individual needs to do his or her work day to day. There is very limited access to widespread information. There is also an extensive audit trail right across the whole IT system in respect of e-mails, documents and interventions. It is even possible to trace documents that are printed back to the individual who printed them. These are processes and systems that we continually improve. Four years ago I could not have said our systems are as good as they are now. We have worked on them and in my opinion they are now state of the art, but we are never satisfied with them. The security systems in NAMA are a continuous focus of the board, the audit committee and the audit programme that our internal auditors conduct every year. We will continue to improve those systems. We have logistical and structural safeguards in place now.

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