Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish to start not with the detail that has been discussed but the bigger picture at stake in all of this. There was a report by Jim Power which received some publicity on Sunday. With all the news of Garda matters and the bus strike, it has been somewhat drowned out. This is very unfortunate because what the report suggests is pretty explosive and makes even the Apple scandal pale in comparison. It suggests we have lost out to the tune of €18 billion on NAMA's disposal of assets far beneath their value. It goes without saying that such an amount of money could utterly transform the situation of this country and resolve our housing and homelessness emergency, the crisis in our health services and much more besides. If one adds this sum to those in respect of the Apple case and the other tax loopholes benefiting the corporate sector, if these practices were not happening, it would utterly transform the lives of Irish citizens. If there is even a whit of truth in what - I wish the Minister would stop having a private conversation while I am trying to speak. This is a scandal beyond scandals. I know the pressure is on our friends in the media with all the various significant events happening but I appeal to them to look seriously into what is alleged in Mr. Power's report. It suggests that what we glimpse from one matter, namely, Project Eagle and the loss of several hundred million euro, as alleged by the Comptroller and Auditor General and confirmed by the Committee of Public Accounts in its report, may be only the tip of a massive iceberg.

When one considers what happened in Project Eagle, any sum even close to that €18 billion - half of it or even a third or a quarter of it - would be a scandal beyond scandals. Was this failure of NAMA to deliver and protect the public interest to the tune of those billions all the result of murky dealings, insiders, conflicts of interest and the failure of NAMA to protect the public interest or people, such as Mr. Cushnahan, advising NAMA and being involved in, frankly, what looks like incredible corruption? Was this happening elsewhere or indeed right across the board?

I find it quite extraordinary in this regard that the Minister, Deputy Noonan, would respond in the way he did to the questions raised about his meeting with Cerberus, as if the appropriateness or otherwise of the meeting with Cerberus is not a legitimate question to ask. When one thinks of what is at stake in Project Eagle itself, but also far beyond it, does the fact of the Minister for Finance meeting with Cerberus - and I think there were 60 other meetings with these property investors and vulture funds - not beg very serious questions? I am not alleging any impropriety. The Minister has said that Cerberus raised the issue briefly but that it was said it would not be appropriate to discuss it at the meeting. Deputy Fleming has just reminded me that directly after that, Cerberus went to meet NAMA, at which point, presumably, the matter was discussed. It is deeply worrying that the issue was discussed the day before the process concluded and that Cerberus met the Minister for Finance and then went to discuss it with NAMA, given that all this and the finders' fees had happened previously with Frank Cushnahan. This is a process designed by Mr. Cushnahan and PIMCO whereby corruption is seriously at play and, effectively, that process he designed remains the process through which the sale eventually took place.

Mr. Cushnahan left the scene but nobody pulled him up, called foul at the time or stopped the sales process. This should have been done immediately when it was discovered he was representing the NAMA debtors in the North, or significant numbers of them, and that fixers' fees were involved. It is incredible that the whole process was not stopped at that moment, but it was not. Therefore, when one thinks of what is at stake, for the Minister to get uppity and say we do not really have a right to ask these questions or impugn him is quite shocking.

One can only conclude, when one considers all this, that we need to root out the truth about everything NAMA did, about all these sales processes and about whether Project Eagle and all the murky dealings and questions that arise from it would be found to be very similar in other sales processes. In this regard, I wish to refer to something to which I referred in the last debate as another example, and I am sure there are many more. I refer to the Spencer Dock development and Mr. Johnny Ronan. One element of Project Eagle is that the deal designed by Mr. Cushnahan on behalf of these developers was - Could people stop talking? It is difficult to concentrate when Deputy Mattie McGrath is having a conversation. One critical part of the arrangement was that the personal guarantees of these developers would be written off. They would be back in business as part of the deal whereby PIMCO or Cerberus would come in and buy Project Eagle at a discounted price. These guys, who had given personal guarantees, would have those personal guarantees disappeared for them so that they could get back into business, and they have. Mr. Kearney is back in business. That was one of the effects of this arrangement. This is exactly what happened with Johnny Ronan in a similar process in respect of Spencer Dock.

I remind the Minister of State, Deputy Murphy, of what Deputy Enda Kenny said in 2011 about NAMA developers getting back their assets at the end of the NAMA process. When he was questioned about this in 2011, he specifically said, "I hope that NAMA are on top of that, and that where NAMA have acquired assets they don't find their way back to where they were acquired from in the first place." Yet this is exactly what happened with Mr. Johnny Ronan. Treasury Holdings, including the Spencer Dock development, owed more than €1 billion to NAMA and were taken over by NAMA.

Another US-based investor fund pays off his debts or does a deal with NAMA for €300 million and now he is back in control of the Spencer Dock site, which is worth approximately €600 million. These US-based investors act as proxies to get him off the hook and get around the stipulation in the NAMA legislation that NAMA developers should not end up owning their assets at a discount, which is paid by the public because of the failure to realise the full value of those assets. The suggestion in the files sent anonymously to us, probably by rival developers, not that it matters because the point remains valid, is that they bought those assets back for €42 million but comparisons with similar sites in the docklands suggest the actual value of those sites is in the region of €100 million to €120 million. Mr. Ronan gets back stuff he was never supposed to get back for €42 million, with the assistance of these US funds, although it is worth approximately €100 million or €120 million.

These are just two examples that stink to high heaven and this can of worms must be opened and fully investigated and every sale and disposal of NAMA assets has to be investigated.

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