Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent)
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I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Unfortunately, for the past 15 months I have been excluded, along with my colleague Deputy Mathews, from the membership of any Oireachtas committee. This means we must wait until the very end, after all the other questions have been asked, to speak. We are in a very unsatisfactory position. I apologise for having to mention this in front of our guests, but I will make the point every time I speak at a committee from now on. It is egregious. I wish Deputy Paul Murphy the very best of luck as he will probably become an official member of the committee tomorrow, although he only became a Member of the Oireachtas last week. The inconsistency and unfairness of this process is highlighted by that fact.

I thank the witnesses for their very lengthy testimony and answering all the questions so far as honestly and frankly as possible. Most of the questions I wanted to ask have been covered but I will deal with some issues. I am very concerned about the reduction in staff, with 50% of people leaving. I understand the cooling-off period is only six months. Ireland is a very small place and there has been an unfortunate overlap between public service, politics and the construction sector. Lines have been blurred, which has caused this country to come to the biggest economic crisis in the history of the State and one of the biggest in all of history. The issue must be reconsidered. It is completely unacceptable that such a high proportion of individuals are leaving NAMA and entering employment for organisations that stand to gain greatly from any information, contacts or inside information that those individuals bring with them. It is an issue for the Government and NAMA, so I would like to hear the thoughts of the delegation about it.

I understand that freedom of information legislation kicks in this month for NAMA. Is that correct?

There have been many concerns about transparency, so-called secret deals and information that was misappropriated or misused by individuals in NAMA. I do not want to drag all of those matters up again, but what preparations has NAMA made to comply with the freedom of information legislation and is it equipped for same? I hope the legislation will help build confidence in the organisation, but it will also cause a drain on NAMA's resources at a time when it is difficult to retain staff.

I will conclude on the matter of upward-only rent reviews, as my questions on social housing and so on have been covered. When the Government entered into office in 2011, it was the stated policy of both Government parties that upward-only rent reviews would be tackled. The position of NAMA, the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, the banks and others was that the issue should not be dealt with by the Government and the intensive lobbying to ensure that the proposals to abolish upward-only reviews were cast aside was successful. The logic was that such legislation would hamper investment, particularly in the retail sector, and affect the price that NAMA could achieve in the disposal of its assets. The revenues being raised from rent could also be hampered. Given the fact that the price of commercial and residential properties in Ireland and the UK has risen dramatically in recent years, though, is NAMA's concern in this regard now gone? Would it still object to the Government dealing with upward-only rent reviews, as they remain a significant issue for business people and a major cause of small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, going out of business? The Government should address the matter. Will NAMA also confirm whether it advertises the fact that this proposal was dropped by the Government in the former's investment materials? It is a point of curiosity.