Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Does Mr. McDonagh understand the problem we have? NAMA was selling groups of assets, or groups of loans, at a particular value, and all of a sudden the Northern Ireland portfolio, a sale that is three times bigger in terms of book value, is put all in one. It is an enormous jump. People have difficulty - I have difficulty with how NAMA put the whole thing in one. It had not done anything like this, of this scale, in any other region.

Normally, when an organisation comes before the committee, figures are quoted by its representatives and by the Comptroller and Auditor General, and they tend to be fairly similar. I have never seen a conflict like that between the figures presented in Mr. McCarthy's opening statement and those the witnesses read out to us. If anything is to be achieved by this committee, we must resolve this conflict satisfactorily.

The Comptroller and Auditor General started off by saying that we all know the book value of these loans was €5.7 billion. NAMA took them in at €2.2 billion. Is that correct? It was a discount of over 60%. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General's figures, €2.2 billion was the carrying value when NAMA came in. In his opening statement, Mr. McCarthy said that the proceeds were about €1.4 billion and there was a loss in NAMA's handling this portfolio of approximately €800 million. He said €211 million of it was made up on the loss at the time of the sale and €572 million with previous provisions NAMA had made against this. The actual loss by NAMA on the discounted value it took in, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General - his figures are up on the screen - was €783 million. He started at the €5.7 billion, where I started. Without getting into a big debate, because my time is tight, am I not right? That is the figure he gave.

However, Mr. McDonagh then tells me - I am quoting from his opening statement - "In overall cash terms, taking into account disposal proceeds, non-disposal income, advances and the proceeds of the loan sale, the net cash loss to NAMA, in layman’s terms, on the NI debtor portfolio was about €280 million." That was NAMA's loss at the point of sale. Mr. McDonagh will have to clarify that statement, and both of those figures are going to have to be reconciled. How can the Comptroller and Auditor General say that NAMA lost €783 million on this portfolio in its time, while Mr. McDonagh can come in and say that in layman's terms - whatever that means - it was €280 million? Whose figure is right? I know who is right.