Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Yes, it is a significant issue for us. Our starting point in respect of evaluating the choice to sell or to work out the assets over a longer term was the paper for the board and the minutes of the board. When we looked at the paper, we found difficulties with it. When we looked at the minutes, they certainly read as referring to the analysis in the board paper and basing a decision on it. There are references in those minutes which to me seem to say one thing but NAMA says they do not mean what they say and that the basis on which it arrived at the decision to price the portfolio at a minimum of £1.3 billion was made on a different basis and that it has set that out. I have explained here what it said.

I have another area of concern. If there is a considered policy that a loan sale is to be managed in a particular way, and there is an extensive guideline document within NAMA that says how loan sales are to be done, where there are departures from it, the explanation for those departures should be documented at the time so that when I come to look at them I can see exactly what was the reasoning. There is a lack of information. The only thing we have on those departures are the minutes of the board. We would have expected much more documentation on the sales process from the loan sale adviser but there is actually very little.

As an auditor I am much more comfortable where I have more paper and more documents relevant to the issue that I am trying to examine.