Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Operations and Functions: National Asset Management Agency

5:40 pm

Mr. Frank Daly:

The plan is outlined in the section 227 review which was published in July. It is also outlined in our statement for 2015, which was published yesterday or the day before by the Department of Finance. It is quite straightforward. It is 50% redemption of senior debt by the end of this year, which is already achieved as of today, 80% redemption by the end of 2016 and accelerating that disposal where we can to take advantage of the current strong investor interest in Irish assets. Side by side with that, we move beyond the senior debt to the subordinate debt and to the possibility of a return on top of that, which we spoke about earlier.

Along with that, we have two other key mandates at present. One relates to facilitating the provision of housing in areas of most need and the other is facilitating the development of the docklands strategic development zone area, where we have 13 sites.

That is the overall strategy. As with any strategy, we keep it under review all of the time. However, the view of the board is that if the property and economic recovery remains quite good and if we can retain the staff we need to do our job, which is a key risk, NAMA will have finished its work, in terms of its senior and subordinated debt repayment, by the end of 2017 or early 2018. If we continue in the provision of housing or in respect of the docklands, obviously those are two specific objectives which could take a little longer.