Ned O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

It is with great pride that I support my Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, in introducing this wonderful and badly needed rescue of the economy, property developers and the banking system. NAMA is not a Fianna Fáil bailout for banks, which is the accusation. NAMA is the European Central Bank's carefully planned rescue of the Irish economy, preventing the International Monetary Fund, IMF, from needing to do the same for Ireland. When NAMA takes bad property loans worth more than €90 billion from the banks, it will deposit €60 billion in NAMA bonds, which will be exchanged in Frankfurt for ECB funds.

NAMA's bailout has been welcomed by all international agencies and investors as being good business for Ireland and the EU. Much nonsense has been stated, but the Minister for Finance's courage, innovation and imagination in putting NAMA in place have been greatly admired. Many people of all parties and political persuasions are proud of his efforts.

The ECB has been generous to Ireland since the crisis arose. Some €100 million in European Investment Bank money has been given to Ireland at a rate of 1% plus the banking institutions' margin. This has kept the country going and was achieved through the negotiations of the Minister for Finance. The ECB supports our proposal.

Some 30% of the developments in question are in England, a sterling area, France, Holland and many other European countries. I suspect that developments in the former eastern bloc, now a part of the EU, are not profitable. We can look back on the past 20 years of the world's economy, particularly England in the 1980s under Mrs. Thatcher. When Canary Wharf - now the UK's pride and joy and the place people visit when they travel to London - was developed, the state of the UK's economy was similar to ours. Many developers went bust and property investors were in trouble. Canary Wharf has since become London's showpiece.

Before the unification of Germany, Bonn was the capital of West Germany and Berlin was the capital of East Germany. With unification, considerable investment in Berlin occurred, even though many developers and bankers went bust. This was news in the financial newspapers, including Ireland's. Since then, it has all come right.

There is a bright future for what we are doing because there will always be better days in the economy. Dublin, Cork and many large towns will not go wrong, but there are land banks in villages and small towns that must be rescued. NAMA will be a profitable organisation. It is an innovative measure and, in two or three years time, will make an unexpected return to the Exchequer.

I am appalled and disappointed at the attitude adopted by Fine Gael, the party of business, which attacked share prices last week. Those prices are important to small investors and I am sure there are more Fine Gael shareholders than Fianna Fáil shareholders, knowing the structure of the former and the background of its members.

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