Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

After paying our operational costs and the interest on the loans we originally took out to pay to the banks, we were going to return about €5 billion to the Exchequer. As the Comptroller and Auditor General pointed out in his report, at the start of NAMA, under the European Commission model that was agreed with him, it was expected that we would return 5% per annum. If we do not count the €5.6 billion overpayment to the banks, whereby we paid them €5.6 billion more than the loans were originally worth, the return is 6.7% per the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. We agree with that. If we exclude the €5.6 billion in state aid, our return is 12.9% per annum, which is substantial. In simple terms, compared with what we paid, plus our operating costs, we have €5 billion going back to the Exchequer that it might never have had if NAMA had never existed.