Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The minute of the 7 October 2013 Northern Ireland advisory committee meeting, published by NAMA, has been championed as some sort of contradiction of the fact that the committee did not have access to confidential information. I encourage Deputies to read this minute. Discussions at that meeting were of a general and strategic nature and were entirely appropriate for that forum. One of the purposes of that forum was to consider strategic market opportunities for NAMA in Northern Ireland. If a third party approach for the Northern Ireland loan portfolio from a major global investment company is not a strategic opportunity, then I do not know what is such an opportunity.

There also seems to be some serious misrepresentation or genuine misunderstanding of the principle of loan valuation versus original borrowed amounts. People are quoting the €5.7 billion figure and inferring that it was in some way recoverable. My colleagues on the Opposition benches will know that if that was recoverable then we would not have had the banking crisis and financial collapse that we had.

To sum up, I again ask that Members consider that calls for a commission of investigation cannot change the following simple facts. First, after all the confusion and conflation, there remains no allegation of wrongdoing against NAMA. Second, the serious allegations against third parties in Northern Ireland and the US are, appropriately, being investigated by authorities in those jurisdictions and we welcome that. Finally, the value for money achieved in the sale, which is of importance to the taxpayer, will be addressed by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Therefore, the proposed amendment places confidence in the Comptroller and Auditor General and will allow him to carry out his review with the full support of this House.

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