Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Apologies have been received from Deputies Peter Burke, Alan Farrell and Josepha Madigan.

Today the committee will continue its examination of the Comptroller and Attorney General's special report No. 94 on the National Asset Management Agency, or NAMA as it is better known, and its sale of Project Eagle, the code name given to the sale of its Northern Ireland loan portfolio. To date, we have met the Comptroller and Attorney General to discuss his report; representatives of NAMA; the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan; and Mr. Brian Rowntree, a former member of NAMA's Northern Ireland Advisory Committee, NIAC. Today we have an opportunity to meet three of the board members of NAMA.

They are current board members who were also on the board at the time of the sale of Project Eagle. We will meet three former members of the board on 17 November 2016. The reason for doing so is that there was a suggestion, before the Comptroller and Auditor General's report was made, that members of the board of NAMA had requested to meet the Comptroller and Auditor General. That meeting did not happen, which we saw in the report, so we said we would facilitate the meeting. That is no criticism of the Comptroller and Auditor General as it is just our prerogative to do so.

I welcome Mr. Brian McEnery who was also and remains chair of NAMA's audit committee and a member of the Northern Ireland advisory committee, NIAC, at that time. We are joined by Mr. Oliver Ellingham who was also and is chair of NAMA's risk management committee and a member of the audit committee. Also in attendance is Mr. Willie Soffe who was chair of the planning advisory committee and also a member of the NIAC at that time.

Please note that we are joined from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General by Mr. Andy Harkness, secretary and director of audit, and Mr. John Riordan, deputy director.

I want to acknowledge that since our meeting with Mr. Rowntree we have received correspondence from NAMA, dated 14 October, from NAMA's head of public affairs. He enclosed a copy of the Ulster University's spatial analysis of the residential development landbanks in Northern Ireland that was compiled for NAMA. He also enclosed another document called Opportunities for Open Discussion by Ulster University and a copy of a parliamentary question from and reply to Deputy Pearse Doherty on the matters we spoke about with Mr. Rowntree. The letter from NAMA categorically refutes what Mr. Rowntree said in a number of aspects. We will publish that correspondence this morning. We will not have a debate on it but I wish to acknowledge that we have received the correspondence and I have put it out there publicly, as urgently as possible.