Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

So 2.5% extra will not terrify them. Is that what Mr. O'Kelly is saying? I thank him for that.

I want to move to the issue of NAMA. I know it is not particularly under the remit of the NTMA but, obviously, what has happened there is connected to a lot of its work. I thank the NTMA for the information and the map it sent to us in preparation for this meeting. While it has its own board, it is semi-detached, if we like, from the NTMA. We could try to explain this for a week but the map sets out clearly the NTMA's relationship with these three bodies, and the functions are listed underneath.

The par value of the impaired loans taken over by NAMA was €74 billion. It paid in the region of €32 billion for those loans, and that was the bailout with taxpayers’ money. We had NAMA here last week. It hopes to achieve around €36 billion of a return, so we will get the €32 billion back plus somewhere between €4 billion and €5 billion. If we take everything into account, including revenue, we are probably talking of a sum closer to €5 billion, so, at best, we will get somewhere close to €37 billion. However, that leaves us with just over €37 billion of a gap. That is the bit that sticks in the taxpayers’ craw and in the public’s craw in terms of the bailout. While NAMA explained this to us at length last week and it will gain from those assets and loans what was given to NAMA - the €32 billion - and that bit extra in terms of €4.5 billion to €5 billion, there is still a €37 billion or €38 billion shortfall.

My question is this. I would be of the opinion, from listening to economists and various other commentators over the last period, that a lot of that was sold too quickly, first, but also that it was sold in very large lots, which reduced the number of bidders. Obviously, the more bidders there are, the more competitive the process is. Is it Mr. O'Kelly's opinion, looking back now with hindsight, that had we been able to hold some of those portfolios for just a couple of years longer and subdivided them into smaller lots, we would have got a better outcome and would have been able to close some of that bailout and relieve the taxpayers of some of that liability they have been stuck with?