Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Can I ask the Clerk to organise our next sub-committee meeting on NAMA for the beginning of March if possible? Could the Comptroller and Auditor General give us a quick update on preparations for the tri-annual report, the first one under the legislation?

With regard to this correspondence, after NAMA informed us that it had done a board evaluation report again this year, we requested information on that evaluation and NAMA gave us a summary of it. The summary was good, but we wrote to NAMA again requesting further details because in that correspondence regarding the summary, which we received on 22 January, it talked about very high satisfaction rates. The rates for "satisfied" and "very satisfied" add up to 95%, which is similar to the previous year. I do not know if it is a good or bad thing that it would be so similar and so high, but it also referred to some feedback that was not positive and that would potentially require attention, such as the desirability of continuing to have a mix of expertise and skills on the board, the strategic balance, Government information issues with regard to the board and a number of the issues that have arisen when we discuss NAMA ourselves and also in correspondence that we get from the public about concerns with regard to NAMA. When the report was presented to the board, it was anonymous, so one could not identify an individual person's comments to protect them and to protect the integrity of the process. The correspondence we received from NAMA says we cannot have any further details on that evaluation because it is worried about confidentiality and process issues.

I will be guided by the committee, but this is an important piece of work carried out by NAMA to review itself. I would like to have a little more detail, given the concerns raised by members of the board about the board and the future direction of the agency.