Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I wish to follow up on what the Chairman said about the banks and amateur lending. That was at a time when we were told that people would not get out of bed for less than €500,000 and that if we paid peanuts, we would get monkeys. All of a sudden, we are being told there is an impediment to the banks because of the salary cap that has been imposed, which is very revealing.

Mr. McDonagh spoke about some very valuable land in Fingal. He also talked about County Kildare which obviously piqued my interest. Is that land serviced? Is land hoarding going on? What stick does NAMA have to ensure that land is disposed of rather than not being freed up, if it is serviced? There is a cost to servicing land in addition to the value of the loan or the property.