Mr. John Mulcahy:

First of all, the loans tend to be valued on a cash flow basis, not on the basis of the underlying asset. I notice that members of this committee often interchange the word "asset", meaning two different things. In some senses, the Comptroller and Auditor General did the same thing. There are two meanings. The assets that NAMA had were the loans to the debtors. I do not want to be patronising here but this is important. The loans to the debtors are one asset. The underlying security, the real estate, is a separate asset. NAMA did not have access to the underlying real estate. It may inform the value of the loan. In fact, it informs a fairly big backbone of the value of the loan but to dive into the value of the underlying real estate is not as pertinent as looking at the value of the loans.