Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The Cabinet deals with all economic issues, including banking, on an ongoing basis. Obviously, some meetings would take place that would not be Cabinet committee meetings, for example, between myself and the Minister for Finance or between myself, the Minister for Finance and other Ministers or people attending from the Central Bank. This depends on the issue of the day or the issue requiring discussion. To put it another way, we do not have to have a committee in order to have a meeting. However, the normal decisions on banking are taken in accordance with Government procedure, through memos for Government being provided, circulated, discussed and decided upon. Therefore, there is no change in that respect.

NAMA is being set up under the aegis of the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, which has the ability to recruit people within its arrangements and in which it has been quite successful. As we know, this is a mammoth task that has been undertaken. A detailed implementation plan will now be devised by the NTMA for the purpose of setting up this asset management agency. I envisage an interim chief executive and interim board will be established as soon as possible and the Minister for Finance will bring proposals to Cabinet in that regard. The need to set out an implementation plan and take the practical steps for setting up the agency and the question of the staffing complement it will require will be a matter of consideration by the board, the Minister and the interim executive appointed - the NTMA experience in this area will be vital. They will also decide the question of the extent of oversight and decision-making with regard to assets transferred under the control of NAMA. Who will do the monitoring of that work is a matter for decision by NAMA itself. These issues will be decided in due course.

What we see here, arising from the budget, is a policy statement which confirms, both at home and abroad, the overall method to be adopted by Government to deal with the issue of how to isolate these impaired assets and deal with them in the longer term by recovering their full value to the greatest extent possible, protecting the interests of the taxpayer and setting up an agency that will be independent, transparent and in line with EU guidelines in respect of impaired assets. These are the sort of considerations that will now be undertaken by the Minister for Finance as he comes to Cabinet for the consideration of an interim board and the setting up of an executive.

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