Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

NAMA, for all practical purposes, amounts to a bad bank in the case of Anglo Irish Bank. The completion of the NAMA exercise will then enable the making of a strategic decision in regard to the direction the bank should take.

Given the character and size of the risk the bank posed to the economy since last February, the downsizing of the loan books, which NAMA entails, will be a welcome development on world markets and with the European Commission. Building on that, at the conclusion of that exercise - because it stabilises the bank and puts it in a position to fund itself - a decision can then be taken about the strategic direction the bank should take. The Deputy must remember that if we continue the orderly wind-down which he advocates in regard to that part of Anglo Irish Bank which is not part of the NAMA process and which remains in the bank, the certainty that the taxpayer will be at a loss is accelerated rather than diminished.

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