Mr. Frank Daly:

On the residual debt and the danger of exposure to litigation and so on, as I said in my statement, we do not believe that any of this has been prejudicial to the interests of debtors and do not believe that will be the case in the future. The biggest defence of this at the end of the day will be that properties will be openly marketed. As such, the value will be the value. Whether this applies to a property being marketed next week or in five or ten years time, that will be the situation. We do not believe our debtors will be prejudiced.

The Deputy also asked whether there should be a blanket prohibition on the purchase by NAMA staff of properties. This issue was discussed by the board. Following much consideration, we took the view that, in one circumstance, NAMA staff could purchase a property, namely, if it is to be their principal private residence, provided there was prior approval to do so and there was full visibility of it in the organisation, right to the top, and that the property was openly marketed. There would never be a situation in which we would exempt a property from the requirement to be openly marketed. We felt this was a proportionate response. There are 240 people employed in NAMA and a further 500 in the participating institutions. NAMA controls approximately 13,000 residential properties. I know there are other properties on the market and, as such, NAMA is not the be-all and end-all in this situation. In terms of people wishing to access a principal private residence, however, we believe our response has been proportionate. We are comfortable with that.

Reference was made to a particular transaction in Cork, which I think has been dealt with fairly extensively by way of response to parliamentary questions. I do not intend to go into the detail in that regard. In case there is any doubt, there was no question of any NAMA staff member or other member of staff connected with it being involved in that transaction.