Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Let us remind ourselves that this controversy directly affects every citizen and taxpayer in the State. Everybody has a stake in NAMA, for better or worse, yet the Government in this state cannot even be bothered to properly investigate allegations of the most serious nature concerning the sale of one of NAMA's major loan books.

When the Assembly finance committee examined this issue it stated:

Whilst it is does not fall to this Committee to pursue, given the seriousness of the revelation by PIMCO, it is unclear why the Irish Government’s Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, did not intervene at this point, by exercising his general powers of direction over NAMA to suspend the sales process until matters were investigated fully. The Committee also notes that Minister Noonan did not inform the Northern Ireland Executive of this development. In addition, the Committee regrets that Minister Noonan did not encourage NAMA to attend an oral hearing of the Committee.

What the committee and people in this jurisdiction do not understand is why the Minister for Finance would attempt to live in blissful ignorance about this issue. This must stop; the issue has become far too serious for such feigned ignorance.

The mere mention of fixer’s fees and backroom deals in 2014 in a telephone call from NAMA to the Minister for Finance should have had the Minister pulling the plug on this process. Instead, NAMA was allowed carry on as usual. Nobody shouted "Stop" and the controversy continued with arrests and further investigations, but the Government would not even commission an investigation into the matter. When I persuaded the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, which was chaired at that time by a Fine Gael Deputy, to write to the Minister for Finance asking him to direct NAMA to appear before the committee in the Assembly, the Minister ignored the directions and views of the committee.

The motion before us is clear. It proposes to set up a commission of investigation, this time do its job properly unlike in the case of the IBRC mess.

The counter-motions are equally clear. Fine Gael tells us there is nothing to see here. Fianna Fáil tells us there is nothing to see here. I know which side Sinn Féin is on. We are proud to sponsor and support the motion. We have consistently raised the need for a commission of investigation. Indeed, within days of the sale of Project Eagle I was raising questions on the sale with the Minister for Finance. Despite his knowing all the information about fixers' fees and so on, he led the Dáil to believe there was nothing to see here.

Fianna Fáil's latest attempt at two-faced politics is utterly transparent and typical of its approach to politics. Literally 15 days ago, Deputy Micheál Martin stood up in the Chamber and said that the Government's position on the sale of Project Eagle by NAMA was becoming more untenable by the day. He said that the sales process, whether we liked it and whether NAMA liked it, was not robust or competitive and did not secure the best outcome. He went on to say there were major ethical questions over the entire sale of the asset. He asked whether it ever occurred to the Taoiseach that we should set up a commission of investigation given that the UK National Crime Agency, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and others were pursuing it. That was the position of Fianna Fáil 15 days ago. The position of Fianna Fáil in October was to call for a commission of investigation to be established. However, when push comes to shove, Fianna Fáil retreats into the establishment. It is afraid to look into issues but happy to look angry about them for a few cheap headlines.

Deputy Michael McGrath referred to how we had to ensure the criminal investigation was not affected. That is a great line from the spin doctors of Fianna Fáil. The line is that we now have criminal investigations and that a commission of investigation is not warranted but Fianna Fáil is not doing a U-turn. The reason none of that adds up is the UK National Crime Agency, the agency conducting the criminal investigation, announced in a press release to the world on 9 July 2015 that after receiving requests from the Police Service of Northern Ireland it was instigating a criminal investigation into the issues surrounding the sale of Project Eagle. That was on 9 July 2015. In October 2015 Deputy Michael McGrath said it was imperative that the Dáil-----

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