Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 18 October 2016

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed)

10:00 am

Photo of Bobby AylwardBobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have another question. Mr. Soffe said in his opening statement, "... given the recent history of this island, it would have been unthinkable for NAMA to have ignored the impact of its actions on the Northern Ireland economy and on North-South relations", for political reasons and so forth. However, NAMA sold the portfolio to a private consortium, Cerberus. Once it was sold, NAMA had no control of it. Cerberus controls this loan book now and it can do whatever it wishes. Neither the State nor NAMA has control over it. Was NAMA not taking a chance, given it says that it was considering the impact on economics in Northern Ireland? Is it not the case that what happens with Cerberus is up in the wind? That consortium is out to make money; that is the reason it bought the portfolio. It did not buy it to lose money. It can do whatever it wishes with the portfolio. Did anybody think of the impact of a private consortium buying the lot and possibly damaging the economy in Northern Ireland and even in the South, via its offshoot being connected to it and the Border? Was the fact that Cerberus could do whatever it wished with it considered before the sale was completed?

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