Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

As I made clear several times, the only purpose of this minor technical amendment is to clarify what is already the law. In other words a subsidiary operating in a foreign jurisdiction must comply with the local law. That is the only purpose of this amendment and it has no other purpose whatsoever. It simply makes explicit what is already implicit.

Deputy Burton intervened in respect of tax havens to give her analysis of how people structure their affairs. Let us begin with the fact that NAMA will acquire bank assets. The bank assets are not, to any appreciable extent, if at all, located in tax havens. The assets NAMA will acquire are based in jurisdictions that have legal systems of which we know, respect and with which we work.

We will now go beyond the assets to the collateral and borrowers and how those borrowers structure their affairs. Under the legislation NAMA is given all the powers which the Constitution permits to acquire off borrowers where they must enforce such powers and to set aside transactions which are improper.

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