Mr. Frank Daly:

May I make three quick points? I want to be clear with the committee. Nobody in NAMA is cheerleading for price increases in housing. Increasing prices have a positive effect for us in respect of our return and, ultimately, the €3.5 billion that we will return to the State. There is nobody in NAMA, however, saying that it is great for us that house prices are increasing. There was a time when returns were going the other way and we had to grin and bear it back in 2010 and 2011.

I reiterate a point made this morning. Under our mandate, as a board and as directors, we cannot fund projects that are not viable and many of them are still not viable. There is also a capacity issue in the house building sector.

There is a dearth of skills and a dearth of people with the capacity to build. The committee should look at the 10,500 units that we have delivered in that context. That is 25% of all of the building that was done in this country over those years.