Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

The committee has invited me here to discuss my role with NAMA as it relates to the seven distinct topics mentioned. I will address each of these in turn. The first topic is the special liquidation of IBRC. NAMA has no role in the special liquidation, which means I cannot be of assistance to the committee in that regard. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, recently announced that residual IBRC activity will transfer directly to the proposed resolution unit within the NTMA following the enactment of the relevant legislation to facilitate the conclusion of the special liquidation. Following this announcement, NAMA has no role to play in the transfer of IBRC activity to the NTMA resolution unit.

In its invitation, the committee also asked me to discuss the dissolution of NAMA. We have been planning for some time to complete as much of this work as possible by the end of 2025. We remain on track to achieve this on schedule. During 2025, we will finalise the leveraging of our remaining portfolio and ensure that any residual activity to be transferred to the NTMA resolution unit is minimised insofar as possible. We will also conclude the transfer of our lifetime surplus, currently projected to be €5.2 billion, which includes corporation tax payments to the Exchequer. In December 2024, we transferred €400 million, bringing our total cash contribution to the State to €4.69 billion by the end of 2024, including €450 million paid in corporation tax.

A key part of our activity during 2025 to date includes the transfer of national asset residential property services, NARPS, which is our social housing portfolio comprising 1,366 social homes, to the Land Development Agency, LDA. As such, these will remain in State ownership. We also expect to transfer to the LDA two residual development sites, one in Dublin and Kildare, respectively, with capacity for 4,000 new homes.

We are progressing the wind-down of NAMA in parallel with the legislative process, which is being managed by the Department of Finance, to enact the necessary legislation that will give effect to the dissolution at the end of 2025.

The third topic I have been invited to discuss relates to the IBRC's and NAMA’s data and records. I will set out NAMA’s approach to the data and records it controls. I have no information on IBRC’s data and records and cannot be of assistance to the committee in that regard. NAMA has a long-standing records management policy, which has been approved by the NAMA board and informed by legal advice. Under this policy, specific categories of important NAMA records, such as records identified as having historical significance, NAMA board and committee papers and other Government-related records, NAMA policy and procedures and records supporting the integrity of NAMA’s financial information, have been identified to be retained and preserved. NAMA’s record management policy also sets a framework for managing other categories of records in compliance with GDPR and other relevant obligations. We are making detailed plans for how data and records will transfer to the NTMA resolution unit by the end of the year. The resolution unit will have responsibility for managing these records.

The fourth topic in the invitation relates to the ongoing and unresolved legal cases. This is another key work stream for us. We are continuing to manage 16 cases in which NAMA has direct involvement, including ten active litigation cases and six dormant cases that have not progressed in the past 12 months. There are another eight cases in which NAMA does not have a direct involvement. In these cases, the realisation of secured assets is impacted by the ongoing litigation. NAMA’s approach is to manage each case with a view to obtaining the best achievable outcome for the taxpayer. If we can resolve these cases on terms that meet this objective before the wind-down at the end of the year, we will do so.

However, in cases where this cannot be achieved, they will likely go through a court process and responsibility for managing the cases to a conclusion will transfer to the NTMA.

The fifth topic is the staffing arrangements that will follow NAMA’s dissolution. NAMA has no staff and all staff are assigned to it by the NTMA under section 42 of the NAMA Act. While the precise nature of these arrangements is a matter for the NTMA, NAMA will cease to exist as a legal entity when the wind-down is complete, which is expected at the end of this year, and therefore will no longer have staff assigned to it. Any decisions on how the NTMA resolution unit will operate will be a matter for the NTMA and I have no role in that.

The sixth topic you asked me to discuss is the current assets under NAMA’s ownership. We succeeded in implementing our deleveraging programme managing a portfolio of loans from its value at acquisition of €32 billion. Entering 2025, our balance sheet included a loan portfolio with assets valued in the region of €100 million with associated debt of €1.7 billion, mostly made up of low-value exposures. The loans of some 34 debtors currently remain under the active management of NAMA. Most of these debtors are expected to exit NAMA by the end of this year. Any unfinished activity is likely to comprise of compromised assets of less than €10 million in value, associated with unresolved litigation.

Finally, the seventh topic in the invitation was an update on the commission of investigation report into the sale of the Project Eagle Northern Ireland loan portfolio in 2014. The NAMA board welcomed the Government’s publication of the report by the commission in February 2025. The board has always maintained that the best achievable price was secured for this portfolio and that NAMA managed the sales process appropriately. The board has noted that the findings of the commission’s report confirm this.

There is still some complex work to be done by NAMA to deliver additional surplus moneys to the Exchequer. Our focus now is twofold: first, extract as much value as possible from our residual portfolio with a view to maximising the surplus that we ultimately hand over to the Exchequer; and second, progress the orderly resolution and wind-up of the agency as much as possible by the end of 2025.