Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 October 2020

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report 109 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency
National Asset Management Agency - Financial Statements 2019

11:30 am

Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

Absolutely. Under the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, code, valuations have to be performed by qualified valuers. The code of practice required an appraisal, and appraisals can be done by people who are not qualified valuers. That is a distinction under the SCSI code. We believed that although the November 2009 valuations were dated 30 November 2009, they were effectively done in late 2010 because there were references back to 30 November 2009 . They were provided to the independent business reviewer, which did an assessment of those cashflows as part of its work. We relied on those as meeting the criteria for being appraisals as opposed to valuations. We all knew that because of the stress that was on the markets globally at that stage, asset values were effectively falling. The Deputy will recall that in 2011, very much like today, the whole eurozone was crisis-----