Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The powers provided to the Minister regarding the valuations and the valuation panel are seriously excessive and they constitute a significant threat that NAMA will overpay for assets. I was struck by the many contributions Deputy Fahey made on various Stages in which he expressed supreme confidence that the value of assets held in the US and the UK, for example, would increase rapidly. His view is that such assets are highly valuable and, according to him during his many interventions, they are increasing rapidly in value currently. There may well be a strong temptation on the part of participating institutions and individuals with an interest in what the institutions do to strongly contest values in cases. As the Minister said, the purpose of this is to deal with the parties affected by the valuation who feel it is too low and who want to bump it up to the long-term economic value. Two Fianna Fáil contributors to the debate, Deputies Fahey and Mulcahy, are incredibly optimistic about the increase in value.

I am worried about who will be members of the valuation panel and that we are setting ourselves up for round 2 of crony capitalism Fianna Fáil style. As Dr. Peter Bacon stated in his report, this was one of the factors in bringing the country to its knees. During the overnight debate on Committee Stage two weeks ago, the Minister was startled to read some of the powers he has under this section and he agreed that they ought to be tempered by more oversight. It is regrettable that the Bill will be completed without addressing that issue and it will probably turn out to be an expensive built in factor to bail out the bankers and the developers by Fianna Fáil. Green Party Members are not present and, therefore, they may not have been party to this.

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