Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

Will the shareholder agreement prevent the banks from being shareholders in the master SPV? Will it prevent unsuitable people becoming members of this board? I am speaking in this regard about people who are unsuitable in the broadest sense, unsuitable for this job, not necessarily unsuitable in terms of conflicts of interest or corruption, but because they are not appropriate people to be investors in an asset recovery system which is dealing with property developers and financial institutions with many cross obligations. Where in the shareholder agreement is the reassurance that these people will be suitable?

The Minister has stated that it is absolutely crucial that the SPVs are autonomous in their decision-making but he has not explained how he squares their autonomy with the power of veto in the hands of NAMA and his powers of direction. If they are autonomous, from whom are they autonomous if not from NAMA, Ministers and others? How does the Minister square this with his claims that they are autonomous?

The Minister did not respond to the point made earlier by Deputy Barrett that not only will SPVs make decisions, but they will be directly responsible and accountable at law. If that is the case and they are, as a company of €51 million private and €100 million in all, managing a €54 billion portfolio, what does the Minister mean when he says they are accountable at law? Can they be sued in respect of decisions that having a bearing on a portfolio that is entirely different from the one they have put in? Can the Minister explain the purpose of the €100 million put into this vehicle? From where did that come? Why not have a special purpose vehicle with €1 in it? This would ensure there is no issue in terms of potential returns.

In short, the Minister has not adequately explained why we cannot go some of the way towards these amendments to at least control the suitability of investors, have published returns that can be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General and have a methodology for determining the dividend that we in this House can see. Surely, some of these matters can be presented to us rather than leaving them to an act of faith in NAMA and the Minister with the directives he issues.

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