Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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With regard to the committee's work on NAMA, the Committee of Public Accounts is named in the legislation as the committee to which NAMA is responsible. It is also responsible to the Minister, and much of the Minister's dealings with it will happen behind closed doors, perhaps as they should. The Committee of Public Accounts is the one body which can publicly hold NAMA to account.

The 2012 report will involve a great deal of work for the committee and I wonder whether one session is sufficient or suitable. Perhaps today will prove it is, but when we consider the amount of work we will have with NAMA, how important our oversight role is and how different it is to the role of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, we might consider giving more time to it in the future. Over NAMA's ten year span the Committee of Public Accounts will be the only Oireachtas committee with the power and responsibility to hold it to account and ensure it does the job we want it to do for the taxpayer and the State. We would regret it if, in a number of years, we looked back and saw we had not given it enough attention. It last came before the committee in June 2012 to discuss a specific report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and its first appearance before the committee was at the end of 2011. We should try to schedule more regular meetings with NAMA. It will shortly give the Minister its medium-term report for 2013 and this would be an opportunity to bring NAMA before the committee to discuss the report and not only have meetings on the production of an annual report because it contains so much. I do not know to what extent we will be able to discuss the IBRC issue today, given it is not included in the 2012 annual report, but it is a significant issue for NAMA. We could spend five hours discussing 2012 and not speak about the IBRC. This would be a mistake and we will see how it goes.

During particular sessions, the committee has sat for a long time. It is not fair to witnesses or committee staff to sit for five or six hours. We should be aware of that when planning meetings with NAMA. Perhaps we should break a meeting into two sessions on the same day or over two days if we are to ensure we do the job as thoroughly as we want.