Mr. Frank Daly:

I thank the Deputy for the acknowledgement at the beginning of his intervention that there is no suggestion of any malfeasance by NAMA. The Deputy will not be surprised if I totally disagree with his characterisation of NAMA's activities and the suggestion of incompetence. We are well used to swimming with sharks in many areas. The Deputy said we had refused to co-operate fully with the Northern Ireland committee. We certainly have not refused to co-operate. The issue is around whether we go to the Northern Ireland finance committee in Stormont and present ourselves there as witnesses. While I do not want to go back over old ground, our view is that we present ourselves here to the members of this committee as witnesses. There has never been any suggestion that we are not accountable to this committee, although that has been said in the Dáil, which was wrong; we are accountable to the committee. There has never been any suggestion that the questioning that happens in the committee is not rigorous enough to get from NAMA any information it wants.

We have co-operated extensively with the committee in Northern Ireland. This morning, Deputy Deasy made a suggestion regarding the chairman of the Northern Ireland finance committee and I have responded positively to it, subject to discussing it with my board. This is an indication of our willingness and real interest in helping the Northern Ireland committee and anybody else involved in the investigation of events that followed the sale of the NAMA book in Northern Ireland. It is in our interests, as much as anybody else's, to get to the bottom of it. We have met the National Crime Agency, NCA. We have not been asked to meet anybody else about it. We will fully co-operate, and the suggestion of a meeting with the chairman of the Northern Ireland committee is useful. I hope my board will agree, and we will proceed on this basis.