Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I am happy to support Deputy O'Donnell's amendment No. 1 to Seanad amendment No. 9. We have argued at great length that a vetting procedure should be provided for, preferably through an Oireachtas committee. The obvious candidates would be the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service and the Joint Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs, although it may be possible in certain circumstances to provide for a sub-committee of the Committee of Public Accounts. The structure of this legislation gives enormous direct and reserved powers to the Minister for Finance when disputes about valuation arise. A dispute may arise if the advisers of a person who has assets in the NAMA process believe those assets are worth €1 billion, but NAMA's view is that they are worth €500 million in light of the collapse of the property market. One party to the dispute might want to raise the value of the assets, but NAMA might want to set the takeover value at market value, or at a minimally increased long-term economic value. The valuation board panel of up to 12 people, all of whom will have been appointed by the Minister, will potentially come into play in such circumstances. They will form the essential core of the system of adjudication on disputes. Each member of the panel will be required to express his or her opinion on whether a property, basket of properties or basket of collateral for loans is actually worth €1 billion, when NAMA says it is worth €500 million. The Minister for Finance will have the tremendous power to appoint the members of the valuation panel.

Obviously, we are happy to support the first part of Seanad amendment No. 9, which sets out a range of areas in which people may have expertise. However, it does not change the core issue, which is that the valuation panel member appointed by the Minister, Deputy Lenihan, and thereby appointed by Fianna Fáil comes up with their suggested amendment to the valuation and then the Minister can either accept or reject that and send it back to NAMA if he agrees with the valuer to have it redone. The valuation panel is one of the most powerful and hidden provisions in the Bill. The Minister and the valuation panel have the power to reject the valuations set by NAMA and to opt, perhaps, for higher valuations. It must be remembered that the Minister is of a very optimistic view. I have heard people like Deputy Mulcahy say they were absolutely confident the property market would rise and rise very significantly over the next ten years. That argument would allow an optimistic property valuer to suggest that the NAMA valuation is too conservative and does not recognise that happy times are around the corner.

The Fine Gael amendment that the appointees to the valuation board should be subject to a very small level of scrutiny following consultation with a committee of the Houses is a very modest amendment and I strongly recommend it to the Minister for acceptance. The Minister for Finance is at some risk in this regard. One of the things that went wrong previously in the Department of Finance is that the former Minister, Charlie McCreevy, regarded himself as an authority on everything and he made his own decisions even if he was overruling his own officials. We do not know if they ever recommended against tax breaks. However, if they gave him advice he was not inclined to take he simply said: "I do what I do." He made designations like that in the upper Shannon. At one stage he said to me that he would make the upper Shannon like the Klondike. When I reminded him what the Klondike was like afterwards, he just waved his hands and walked off.

This section gives extraordinary powers to a Minister for Finance, who will not always be Deputy Brian Lenihan. In fact we hope that will not be so for too much longer. The Fine Gael amendment imposes a modest interaction with an appropriate Oireachtas committee in respect of these incredibly important appointments. The valuation panel is critical in setting values. If those valuers on the panel are Fianna Fáil cronies — because they will be appointed by the Minister — they might be property auctioneers and valuers, the people who built up the boom and encouraged people to keep buying at ever higher prices. They filled the back pages and property supplements of the newspapers week in and week out. These may well be the people who will dominate the valuation panel. Any of them I can think of would easily qualify under most of the qualification criteria set out in the Bill. Most of them have qualifications in this day and age.

The amendment sets out to limit the profile of people who can be appointed to the valuation panel. A person wishing to become an auctioneer does not necessarily need a vast amount of qualifications. I understand such a person just applies for a licence and starts in business. Most auctioneers have completed studies in property management and so on. However, many of them have not done any. They could just be buddies of Fianna Fáil and the Minister, and they would get to sit on this incredibly important valuation panel. This profiling of people does nothing to alter the substance of the extraordinary and excessive powers of the Minister for Finance in personally appointing the valuation panel. The valuation panel reports and recommends to him in cases of dispute. The Minister then makes the decision and sends it back. Perhaps a Minister might keep sending it back to NAMA until it comes up with the answer that agrees with the crony who is on the valuation and who sets out an alternative value. There is scope within this structure for grotesque and gross abuse of a kind that people on all sides have regretted happened in this country before. It is wrong that we are inserting it into the Bill now and that the Minister did not accept the amendments from all the parties in Opposition and possibly even amendments from the Green Party. That party's Members seem to have felt that their stuff was being funnelled privately through Government to the Minister for Finance.

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