Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Regarding the use of 5.5% discount rate, I remind the Deputy that in June 2013, NAMA itself considered what sort of rate it should use for assessing this exact kind of issue - the disposal or holding of an asset. At that stage, it was defending the appropriateness of the 5.5% figure for these kinds of general analyses. It had been using that figure against a background in which its cost of capital had already decreased significantly from the time it took on the loans. After this matter was considered by the board, it was concluded that NAMA should use a range of discount rates when it is doing this kind of analysis. NAMA used the 5.5% rate in its cashflow analysis of Project Eagle, which was presented to the board in December. It used another rate of 2.5% as a kind of a variation when it wanted to see how sensitive the results were. There is no indication that NAMA was questioning the appropriateness of using the 5.5% rate at that time.