Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

I do not accept that it is a feature of NAMA transactions. We are not in the privileged position - nor is anyone I know - of knowing the optimal time to sell an asset. Since the Irish property market was in such a state of distress we took a tactical or strategic decision to sell very little property in the period from 2010 to 2013 and rather to concentrate on overseas sales where the market was more buoyant. We also had to generate cashflow in the meantime. The committee will recall that as part of the troika obligations we had to pay off €7.5 billion of our debt. We got the money to pay off that debt mainly by selling overseas assets. Certainly, where assets were sold they were openly marketed. As I said to Deputy McDonald, a total of 30 bidders looked at the site in question. The best bid was €7.5 million and the next best bid was €5 million.