Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It seems that for a long time, the key question is what might be the appropriate discount rate to apply to inform pricing in terms of assets in Northern Ireland. To a certain extent, discount rates in respect of the cost or price of capital assets in any jurisdiction depends on intangible issues that are hard to put an exact figure on. The dysfunctional political system in Northern Ireland and the evidence presented by the "Spotlight" programme and others regarding the inextricable connections between parts of the political system and the property development sector tells me that one would track a very high discount rate because how could one trust who is behind a deal or what the actual deal is?

NAMA's role in that is the key question for us. A key question in that regard concerns Mr. Hanna - I am conscious of being careful about naming names - who was under investigation by the Public Prosecution Service. I do not believe we can undertake further investigations or analysis in this regard until we know what the conclusion of the Public Prosecution Service is. If it comes back and says that Mr. Hanna was not in any way involved and that what Mr. Cushnahan said in that "Spotlight" programme did not bear any connection to reality, it obviously colours our analysis very significantly. The first thing we should do is accept that we should to a certain extent hold in check and possibly ask why the Public Prosecution Service is taking too long. I do not know if we have the ability to do that. Obviously, there must be a separation of political and legal systems but we could and should look for a speedy resolution.

I note that in his speech, the Minister referenced an article in a Sunday newspaper last week which I also read. I must say that I have a concern about the financing of development and what the right price and return are. To a certain extent, it is very easy to go back to a speculative "if only" way of thinking. This speculative sense is what got us into trouble in the first place. It is a case of thinking that if everything goes right and if all the stars were aligned every which way, we could have made another €18 billion. Yes, but we could have lost €18 billion as well.

I have a certain nervousness about everyone buying into a narrative that we should listen to a few developers again and we would all be on the pig's back if only we got back in the speculative game or played the speculative game a slightly different way. I was conscious of that when I attended a meeting of the Select Committee on Budgetary Oversight when a presentation was made in respect of our funding as a State. An analysis was presented stating that we are saving €4 billion per year on what we had expected to spend on interest payments in 2016 over what we expected only three or four years previously. Due to a range of intangible factors, we are able to borrow money with very long interest rates at very cheap rates. I would take that €4 billion in the bank because it is €4 billion that is realised and real in terms of savings and how our State is seen.

However, we need to change. We need to be more transparent and to acknowledge mistakes where they exist. We need to make sure that in its transactions, NAMA gets the social benefits and other benefits we always wanted from the establishment of the institution regarding how we develop the Irish Glass Bottle site and how it does its work. I return to a point I have been making a number of times. The Minister should amend the NAMA legislation so that after the winding down of the institution, all the deals on those developers which were not resolved out - the vast majority of NAMA transactions - should be made publicly available. It could be done with an amendment to the legislation. I know the Minister told me that he was not minded to do it about three years ago but I still feel that this would go a long way towards meeting some of the concerns that Members have.

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