Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Legislation to establish and govern the operation of the national asset management agency will be introduced during the summer legislative session. Initial work on the preparation of the legislation is underway in parallel with preparations for the operation of the agency. As the Minister said, he is considering the establishment of it on a non-statutory interim basis with a view to undertaking the initial scoping work required. That is often done in regard to setting up agencies such as this. Rather than waiting for the legislative base and then deciding how we will proceed, let us do everything in parallel——

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