Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

If you were in NAMA, and the Comptroller and Auditor General will confirm this, in its first couple of years, we had in 2013 taken in excess of €4 billion of additional losses. Effectively, in terms of any profit NAMA has made, it has really been from 2014 onwards. We had to recover the €4 billion we lost in the first four years of operation. In the scheme of things, we were told there were contingent liabilities here and we had to pay down the contingent liability. In the first three years of NAMA's life the Troika was putting enormous pressure on the Government and on NAMA to pay down as much debt as possible. Obviously, in terms of the NTMA getting back into the bond markets post bailout, the Troika was very anxious we get rid of the contingent liability as much as possible, so that is why we put every effort in to pay off all the senior debt by the end of 2017.