Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

The Comptroller and Auditor General said that there is no measure in the National Asset Management Agency Act of how to get the best achievable financial return but unfortunately that is not fully correct. Section 10 of the Act states that the return should be measured by reference to the price paid for it, the costs incurred and any other matter that NAMA deems relevant. As the Comptroller and Auditor General pointed out and as is included in our report, the expected return on a portfolio when we acquired it, which was determined by the European Commission, was set at a 5% discount rate, which is effectively an internal rate of return. We are ahead of that, at somewhere in excess of 6%. It is important to say that that is over 1% ahead per annum.