Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Let us do a counterfactual in relation to the assets underpinning those loans, which NAMA was asked to manage. It is in the title: National Asset - not "fire sale", "sale" or "try to find a floor in the property market" but "Management" - Agency. Property prices have increased since 2011 by 127%. I was in the Seanad at the time of the legislation and a report came out showing property prices would recover to peak within ten years. This was not crystal-ball gazing stuff. The Department of Finance commissioned that report which said property prices would go up. That was the whole idea of managing the assets but NAMA did not manage them so as to ensure the greatest value. Witnesses have belaboured the issue of acting expeditiously but I do not believe, looking at the legislation, that that trumped losing billions of euro. That is what NAMA did. Let me put this question to the witnesses. If NAMA held on to the assets for longer, would it have made billions of additional euro for the Irish taxpayer?