Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

That is hugely disrespectful and I want to note that.

On the numerous occasions I have heard the Minister, Deputy Noonan, speak about the oversight of NAMA, and I have asked questions also, we have been assured on every single occasion that the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General was embedded in NAMA. In fact, he gave the impression that it had a supervisory role. The Comptroller and Auditor has clarified that in fact it was an audit role. There were a few occasions on which a value for money audit was done. This is one of the occasions and I believe the only one that was done into a set of transactions.

Does the Minister have confidence in the Comptroller and Auditor General? Does he accept the findings in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report? He is certainly contesting the report of the Committee of Public Accounts but that finds that the Comptroller and Auditor General's report was balanced and fair. The Minister needs to clarify that very quickly. Otherwise, the entire role of the Committee of Public Accounts, and that of the Comptroller and Auditor General, who is embedded in NAMA, is called into question.

The Comptroller and Auditor General fundamentally differs on the losses incurred and the appropriateness of the mechanisms that led to the losses in regard to NAMA. The Committee of Public Accounts report of Project Eagle supports the Comptroller and Auditor General's findings. That is the position.

The Minister said that the minutes of the meeting with Cerberus is available on the Department of Finance's website. We had looked at that as we were concluding the report and those minutes do reveal that the issue of Project Eagle was discussed, but it is minuted. There is certainly a very deferential tone to those minutes regarding Cerberus, which went on to purchase €14 billion worth of assets. The conflict of interest issue is an important one. If there is even a perception of a conflict it is important because the last thing one wants is the perception that there is an inside track that had the potential to have a bearing on the amount of money that was got for additional assets.

I refer to another issue that came up during the process, which I had hoped the Minister would be here for, namely, whether NAMA had the standing to sell some of these loans to Cerberus. It pertains to the Irish banks effectively hiding losses and thus exposing the Central Bank, and by extension, Irish citizens, to significant losses. I believe various misrepresentations were made to the Committee of Public Accounts. It appears to have been misled regarding the interpretation of the IAS 39 accounting standard. The former Central Bank Governor, Patrick Honohan, actually claimed during the banking inquiry that he had legal advice assuring him that it was not possible to stop Irish banks hiding losses and thus borrowing from the Central Bank fraudulently. In effect, they were allowed to cover up their insolvency while borrowing from the Central Bank. That goes to the heart of the legal standing of NAMA and its loans, that is, whether they should have been owned by the Irish Central Bank. It is a technical matter but it has a real impact on people's lives. People's homes are possibly being repossessed illegally. Shareholders are being misled and pension funds are being decimated and meanwhile the biggest beneficiaries are the hedge funds.

I am fully supportive of a further inquiry. I hate to think we will spend money and time on a further inquiry but I believe it is needed.

There is a very serious issue regarding confidence in NAMA given that this is not an isolated incident but the norm to conclude further sales. I would have concerns about NAMA carrying out further large-scale transactions having seen what the Committee of Public Accounts has seen in respect of this project.

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