David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will try to be as quick as I can. We all want to get out.

I want to make one observation on NAMA's overall performance and I will put it to Mr. Daly first. I have some sympathy for his position in respect of decisions his organisation would have to make because it is somewhat subjective. People will have opinions as to whether good or bad decisions were made. NAMA has to make, as Mr. Daly put it in the past, real world decisions based on what the market is saying, NAMA's own goals and what is laid down for NAMA in its remit. There would be internal pressures, external pressures, etc. One will always have somebody with a different opinion who will say maybe NAMA should have held on, it might have got more or whatever. I can accept that. NAMA then has to make decisions. At some point, it has to make a decision.

While that is the case, NAMA also must have processes to protect the organisation, the management of assets and how the agency goes about its business. For example, the only project under which we were able to get under the bonnet was Project Eagle. What we saw there was a deviation, maybe, from some of the sale strategies. There were concerns, as Mr. Daly will be aware, regarding the management of conflicts of interests and a number of other matters. The committee published a report, as Mr. Daly will be aware, on Project Eagle. That is subject to a commission and I am not asking Mr. Daly to talk about any of that. In terms of our report, we made a number of observations and recommendations. Has Mr. Daly read the report? I put the same question to Mr. McDonagh. Have they read the Committee of Public Accounts' report? Do they have anything to say or any comment to make on the report, given that we met several times during the course of that? We did an awful lot of work as a committee and put an awful lot of effort into it.

I appreciate that NAMA has to make decisions and there are factors and all sorts of pressures involved, but process is important to protect an organisation. Were lessons learned from the Project Eagle sale or other sales and were lessons learned from any of the reports that were done, particularly the report of the Committee of Public Accounts? That is my first question to Mr. Daly and to Mr. McDonagh.