Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join my colleagues in commending Deputy Michael McGrath on tabling the motion and shining a spotlight on this matter. The allegations that have been made required a proper airing and debate in the House as they have not been adequately debated in the cold light of day since they were made. Unfortunately, taxpayers have lost a great deal as a result of the recession and the wallop taken by the banks. The State had to intervene to finance the banks and underwrite the hit that was taken when the National Asset Management Agency acquired loans from the banks. It is exceptionally unfortunate that this was followed by another mistake in terms of the manner in which NAMA has been rolling out the sale of its loans.

The Minister of State asked us all to stand back and have faith in the Comptroller and Auditor General who, according to the text of the Government amendment, has been asked to carry out a value for money review of the various NAMA sales transactions. The Project Eagle sale is to be the first of these value for money reviews. The Government has only now decided to request the Comptroller and Auditor General to perform this task. The Minister for Finance has been pressing NAMA to proceed promptly with the sale of various tranches of its loan book with a view to completing its work. The Minister of State asked the House to have confidence in the expertise of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General to assess the Project Eagle portfolio and determine whether the sale constituted value for money. While the Comptroller and Auditor General has an exceptional track record in assessing the way in which public money is spent, his office does not have expertise in the area in which it is being asked to work.

With regard to the scale of the work being done by the National Asset Management Agency, the loans transferred to NAMA had a face value of €68 billion. Including rolled up interest of €9 billion, the overall figure amounted to €77 billion or more than 1.5 times the annual budget of the State in recent years. When one considers the degree of oversight, assessment and review applied to these loans of €77 billion, even if NAMA paid much less than that figure for them, it bears no resemblance to the degree of oversight the Oireachtas exercises in respect of the annual budget which is teased out in committees, this Chamber and with various oversight bodies. NAMA was established for a specific purpose and, as such, did not have a track record. It was given a task, independent of significant Oireachtas oversight, of bundling up loans and selling them on to investors. Many of these loans were sold in massive bundles, of which Project Eagle was the largest, which only very significant international investors were in a position to purchase. Given that the only reason for buying these loans would be to sell them on subsequently, it is hardly a surprise that a number of agents engaged in negotiations to identify which parties might be interested in purchasing them.

Deputy Troy noted that the value of commercial property in the Belfast region alone has increased by 20% in the past year. Despite selling on the loans in large bundles, the middle men, international investors and whoever else they may have engaged are making a killing while taxpayers here are having to pick up the tab by paying the difference between the face value and sale value of the loans.

It is long past time the Government adopted a straightforward approach and established a thorough investigation into Project Eagle. Too many question marks surround the project and the Government has been running and hiding and ducking and diving on the issue for too long. I commend the motion.

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