Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)

I wish to raise the important issue of NAMA and its efforts to date in pursuing developers who owe money to the agency, particularly focusing on the foreclosure of bankrupt developers. I raise this matter having already submitted a parliamentary question to the Department of Finance, to which the response from the Minister was less than satisfactory.

As far back as 13 April, Mr. Brendan McDonagh, the CEO of NAMA, appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service and made estimates and projections for how and when bankrupt developers and unco-operative developers would be pursued. At that point, Mr. McDonagh stated that NAMA would start to foreclose on bankrupt developers by September, after assessing how they intended to deal with their debts. He clearly stated at that meeting that NAMA would take a strong view and would apply a zero value to developers' personal guarantees when considering loans.

The disappointing aspect of all of this is that, to date, NAMA has worked on 12 potential cases where legal action is being taken against some of these people. So far, as matters have proceeded through the Commercial Court, it has been clear that NAMA has been ineffectual and ill prepared when dealing with these cases. For example, on 18 October, Mr. Justice Peter Kelly criticised what he described as the sloppy and careless manner in which legal proceedings were being brought by the various banks in efforts to recover multimillion euro debts. He noted that in one case taken by Anglo Irish Bank, the bank's legal team sued for €3 million, as opposed to the €9 million owed. It is clear that the banks in their proceedings in the Commercial Court, along with NAMA in its failure to progress matters through the legal system, are failing in their duty. There is a significant duty of care now to the taxpayer, who has pumped billions of euro into Anglo Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland and AIB, and there should be some return for this in terms of reckless developers being pursued to ensure they do not get of scot free.

It is puzzling to the public that one developer could be heard on an RTE radio programme on Saturday talking about the salary he could expect to receive from NAMA. As we know, NAMA has not even set a cap on the fees that will be paid to developers. This grates with people because they do not understand why salaries are being paid to developers who were reckless by their own admission and why those fees have not had a maximum level put in place.

There have been delays in identifying properties that have been transferred into the names of developers' spouses. There are lists of properties that have been identified in the national press owned by developers where substantial assets worth up to €2 million have been transferred since 2008 into the names of the developers' spouses. When properties have been transferred within the five years, NAMA is well within its rights to set aside those transferrals.

I hope there will be a more detailed answer from the other side of the House than was the case in response to my parliamentary question.

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