Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

It is a legal prohibition on NAMA, which prevents it from selling an asset back to an owner or somebody with an interest in that asset. I pointed out, in the section 226 report, that it is very restricted legislation. It only applies to a sale by NAMA, not by a borrower or a receiver. It only applies to the sale of a property and not the sale of a loan. There are definitions of connected persons or debtors for the purposes of the section. Because NAMA sells loans rather than property, what it has tried to do is to extend that principle to loan sales and it is to be commended on that. That means that, while there is a legal structure there and a potential that, if NAMA were selling property, there would be some infringement or criminal offence, it is not in the same league when it has applied the same approach or looked for the same declarations in relation to the sale of a loan. It is very complicated. Any infringement or irregularity in a declaration that was made around the sale of a loan would not, strictly, be an offence under section 172.