Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

The NTMA is a business and is there to work on behalf of the State. It recruits professionals - very good colleagues who do their jobs well. The NTMA is very mindful that it will have to get to a point where it decides the roles it needs and how many of them it wants. The NTMA will advertise those roles and it will probably have to happen sooner rather than later. As matters stand today, NAMA has a redundancy programme and people have been accepted onto that programme. If people are to set aside the redundancy programme and go to the NTMA for two more years, the NTMA will have to offer them a contract. I cannot speak for the NTMA but in my view it would be better if it was done sooner rather than later.

I can understand why the NTMA is trying to figure out how much of the portfolio will be left and how much of the litigation will be left. There is no point in saying just for argument's sake that it will need three litigation solicitors when, in fact, if the cases have reduced from ten active litigation cases to five, only two litigation solicitors might be needed. I can understand why the NTMA has not pulled the trigger on that yet. In fairness, I know the agency is working on that and I am very mindful of trying to retain the skill set.

Having said that, a large amount of the working NAMA is doing now is preparing handover material and I am also mindful of the need to hand over the files in a proper way to the NTMA. Whether it is for NAMA people who stay for another year or two or for people who are recruited from elsewhere, the file will be an A to Z of everything that is left and where it sits and nobody can come in and say there is no file here and they do not know what is happening. The board and I are very mindful that we will hand over the files properly to the NTMA by the end of the year and we will always be there to help if the NTMA needs help afterwards. None of us will say we are no longer in NAMA and do not have to answer that question. Those sitting on the board of NAMA or not that kind of people. We will be there to help if the NTMA needs help.