Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 July 2015

Public Accounts Committee

National Asset Management Agency: Financial Statements 2014

9:30 am

Mr. Frank Daly:

That is a very valid point because one would need to look at a very mixed portfolio like Northern Ireland where indices in the broad sense might not exist and if they did, they might not reflect the reality of some of the assets that were in that. We are in a continuum. If we go back to NAMA at the beginning and all of the objectives and the wish list people had for it, one was that we would stimulate the property market in Ireland. One certainly cannot do that by sitting on every asset one has and hoping that in ten years the market will have begun to move without any intervention from NAMA. NAMA's sales in the market are in themselves a stimulant. I believe that the entry of a huge fund like Cerberus into the Northern Ireland market has probably created a stimulus. It is very hard to take that into account when back in April 2014, NAMA made that decision. We can debate this wherever the Deputy likes but to say the market had turned might be a bit strong. If the Deputy said that the market was turning, I would not disagree with him but I do not want to be Jesuitical about it.