Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

There are a few points I would make about that. First, the Irish market was dead. We had to get the Irish market moving. People invested capital in the early days before Ireland got into bailout. We got the best price we could get for the assets at the time. We had to generate some cash flow in Ireland and get some activity going to get some investors into the Irish market. It always amuses me when people pick out examples and ask whether I wish I had held onto certain properties to get more money from them. Of course I do but at the time we were trying to generate cash. We had a troika target of paying off €7.5 billion by the end of 2013. That was non-negotiable. I used to attend meetings every six months with the troika, with 40 people in the room, including representatives of the IMF, European Commission and the European Central Bank. They would be shouting across the table at me asking why NAMA was not selling more and generating more cash. They said they wanted NAMA to generate more cash and that it was too slow generating it. That happened. We said we would reach the target of €7.5 billion, and we achieved that.

People do not comment on the other sales in respect of which we have done spectacularly well. Nobody talks about that because it does not suit anybody to talk about that. Let me give an example. I am not saying this is right either but it just shows the other side, about which nobody talks. Eighteen months ago, when we put on the market an asset that we just sold recently, people were offering us €10 million for it. We did not sell it then. We have just completed a sale for €30 million. Therefore, we got three times the value that would have been realised 18 months ago by changing our minds and saying we would not sell at that point in time. The buyer is the buyer. It is a very expensive asset for him — good luck to him for buying it. That is a big change in 18 months. We benefit from that.