Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last week I asked some questions about the sale of the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA’s Northern Ireland loan book to Cerberus, the circumstances surrounding it and the need for a commission of investigation to examine it. Prior to that, we had tabled several questions on the issue to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan. We note that representatives of NAMA appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts last week on the sale of these assets.

There was a policy drive to accelerate the sale of NAMA’s loan books in this country and elsewhere in six months, as in the case of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC. The Minister for Finance made these comments at an Oireachtas committee and suggested it to NAMA. Apart from this, it emerges that he knew from March 2014 that a former NAMA adviser, Mr. Frank Cushnahan, was to be paid in a three-way split of a £15 million fee between him and two solicitors firms for the sale of the Northern loan book to Pimco, the first company which had come along looking for a closed deal with NAMA. We also note that there seems to have been significant interaction between Northern politicians and Pimco, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Northern Ireland First Minister, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, and NAMA. For example, the principal private secretary to the Northern Ireland First Minister sent a copy of the memorandum of understanding between the Northern Ireland Executive and Pimco to the Minister for Finance who properly sent it back to them, saying they should deal with NAMA.

The fundamental question is did it not strike anybody, including the Minister for Finance, that a former adviser who had resigned some months earlier from the Northern Ireland advisory committee to NAMA was involved in doing the biggest property deal on the island of Ireland with the very company that was going to buy it.

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