Mr. Frank Daly:

We might also have a figure for the amount that would have been lost had we held onto them. We do not seek such empirical evidence. Once we have sold the loans or the assets they are no longer under our control. There would be no obligation on anyone who buys an asset from us to tell us what they do with it. One can follow some of this in the media and in the property pages and I believe there would be a very mixed outcome. Some people will have made a profit, while other people have certainly not made any profit as of yet and are struggling. It would be something of a fruitless exercise. Once one sells something, one decides that the price is the best one can get for a loan or an asset and that one would not get more in the foreseeable future.

The overarching point was raised by Deputy Murphy. We cannot sit around on these loans and assets for ten or 20 years. The senior debt had to be repaid, a contingent liability on the State, so we had to generate cash and funds and we had to make the investment in the 5,300 houses we have delivered, with a target of 20,000 by 2020. We have delivered 2,500 social housing units to date and we are going to make a surplus of €3 billion. We have invested substantially in the docklands, where over 80% of the development area we control is constructed, under construction, has planning or is in start mode. We could not have done all that if we had sat back and sold nothing. We had to put stuff on the market. In doing that, one gets buyers and takes the best price possible, provided one is satisfied that it is value for what one is selling. There is no point excluding international funds, or saying to someone, "We won't take it from you because you come from the US or the UK and we don't like you". We were set up as a commercial body and section 10 drives us. It is not a suggestion but it directs us - it is a mandate to get the best financial outcome we can for the State. There are all sorts of interactions with social or economic development but the best social and economic dividend we can deliver out of NAMA would be for no debt to be hanging over the Irish people when we have done our business. We are nearly there - within €500 million of the target - and on top of that we will have delivered some 20,000 houses as well as the docklands, social housing and other bits and pieces.