Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Statement of Strategy 2011-2014: Discussion with Department of Finance

3:25 pm

Mr. John A. Moran:

Property is not specifically in the statement of strategy. We took a look at the restructuring of the Department and how we were doing things. Previously, we had been treating NAMA differently from how we were treating the banks in which we have shareholdings. In effect, the live companies that we had been holding were falling between two stools. We have now moved the oversight of NAMA and our involvement in what is effectively the protection of the State's interest with respect to the assets that NAMA holds into the shareholder management unit, SMU. It is part of an exercise to consolidate, because I do not see a difference in terms of the economic interests that the State owns, whether it owns them through a shareholding in the banks or indeed through exposure to the ultimate recovery of NAMA assets. It now follows a process. I am not sure of the exact number of people in the SMU but it is probably approximately 20. They are now charged with - and, in effect, using similar principles for - looking after our interests, whether in NAMA, the banks or the insurance companies.