Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

How would the Minister propose to assign a medium-term economic value to development land in a context where throughout the country we have large volumes of unsold property, both commercial and residential? It is obvious to anybody that a medium-term economic value for development land, which constitutes the largest element, is likely to have to face a very steep discount. Does the Minister understand that people working with and running businesses in this country are terrified of the charges the Government proposes to put on the backs of taxpayers for the NAMA process? Mr. Lundgren, the gentleman from Sweden, specifically told us that in Sweden the banks had to take the hit in terms of discounting the values.

The Minister said NAMA is not going for the big developers and he denied that there were 20 or 50 big developers. Did I get the number wrong? Are we talking about 100 big developers? Why would the Minister go after developers whose positions were positive? Surely the only people going into the NAMA structure are those who are impaired. They may have, as the Minister suggests, some good assets like rent rolls from, say, commercial property centres and so on. Can the Minister elaborate on that remark? I find it extremely difficult to understand why NAMA would acquire good assets from a developer in good standing. Surely NAMA is only for people who are so impaired they have to be bailed out. There is no other meaning to it.

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