Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

That is not the case at all. The Minister has been committed to dealing with the matter in an up-front way at all times. The central projection that NAMA has set out based on the up-to-date situation is that it will make a profit of something of the order of €1 billion. That is the central projection. It is set out over a ten year projection period based on current expected asset recovery values. During the next ten years issues will arise in terms of values and the recovery of the economy etc. This will all be dealt with on a case by case basis. It proves the wisdom of the NAMA approach of dealing with every loan on a case-by-case basis. It also disproves the idea put forward by the Opposition at the time that in some way there was some padding going on between the banks, those clients and NAMA as regards what the value would be.

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