Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 6 December 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was also dependent on the acquiescence of Dublin City Council agreeing a material contravention. That was all assumed in advance. As it was for a school, it may not be an invalid assumption that councillors would support a material contravention for a school site. We agree most councillors would. However, we need specifics and the comparisons used. I take the point that when we get that answer there may or may not be a broader issue at that stage. We will ask Valuation Office the basis of the valuation and the comparisons it used to come up with that valuation. We note and publish that. That letter will go to the Valuation Office.

Correspondence No. 1761 is from NAMA on Project Nantes giving a breakdown of the €24 billion in asset sales categorised by the jurisdiction of purchaser and the application of section 172 of the National Asset Management Agency Act. We will put that up on the screen. There was the issue of the €11 billion from loan sales and the €24 billion from asset sales. NAMA stands over the original information it gave on the jurisdiction and origins of the entities or persons that became the ultimate beneficial owners of assets. As of now we will accept that in good faith.

The detail it gives on section 172 of the National Asset Management Agency Act will be of interest to some people.

The second paragraph on page 2 states:

In summary, the legal analysis concludes that the acquisition of these loans by a company, of which the person concerned is one of five directors, was not a contravention of Section 172(3) of the NAMA Act, 2009. Neither was the transaction in any way "illegal" ...

We did not go there. Somebody else may have said that. Essentially it states the acquisition of these loans by a company, of which one of the persons concerned is a director, was not a contravention of the original definition of what was covered by section 172. Maybe that was always the original intention. I do not know. It states what it did was not a contravention.

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