Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 25 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 Mary Lou McDonaldMary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

NAMA relies on Lazard. NAMA has cited its advisers repeatedly as guarantors as to the competitive tension within the process, having achieved best value in respect of the taxpayer and so on. This is very much the outfit that afforded NAMA the catch-all comfort blanket that all was well. Yet, it turns out, and we knew this already, that it was not informed of this carry on around fixer fees or success fees. Not alone that but that did not happen by accident. It was a very conscious decision by NAMA, at executive level and, it seems, board level.

I want to put it to Mr. Collison that given all of that, and the restrictive different role that NAMA afforded to Lazard as a loan adviser in this scenario, as against other loan advisers in other sales processes, given the fact that Lazard was not informed of a very key development within the entire sales process, and given the fact that the letter of comfort that NAMA received from it at the end of the process is partial, that in fact we cannot afford a huge amount of confidence in respect of Lazard in the way that NAMA seeks to do.

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