Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The NAMA assets were transferred with a haircut of about 57%, but the European Commission later judged that the banks had received €5.6 billion in State aid by the end of 2011 as a result of loan transfers, which amounted to a 22% aggregate premium above the November 2009 loan market value, according to NAMA's section 227 review in July 2014. What is the professor's view of the NAMA setup in retrospect? Why was an alternative course not more seriously considered, such as nationalising the banks and burning the bondholders, rather than transferring the loans?