Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As I have said to Deputy Kenny already, the purpose of transferring the banks' impaired assets to NAMA is to allow the banks to strengthen their balance sheets and reduce the uncertainty regarding the level of bad debt held by them. This should in due course allow banks to provide credit to the economy on a commercial basis, which is necessary as there is currently no functioning market for those assets. In the absence of market-generated values, a valuation method will be put in place to establish the appropriate values of the assets transferred to NAMA. The Deputy has been bandying about figures for book value, although of course there would be major discounts on valuations taken by banks and by those who own the debts.

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