Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

How did the Minister declare it on that day? He said it had been unwise of him to meet Cerberus, the company that was successful in the end. There has been a tribal attitude on the part of Members opposite in thinking they have to surround the Minister and cushion him from any complaint when all we are saying is that it is a fact that he did meet Cerberus. It was in the notes of the meeting that Project Eagle had been discussed and then stopped. It was also in the notes that within hours Cerberus met the executive of NAMA to discuss it also. Is it not insider trading that Cerberus which was successful met the Minister 48 hours before the deal was clinched? The Minister might have met Cerberus for a completely different or an innocent reason or because he wanted to meet people coming in from abroad. However, it is stated in the notes that Cerberus was to meet NAMA executives to discuss the sale of Project Eagle. That puts a question mark over it.

I want to come to the report. From the very beginning, I was taken aback by the aggressive attitude of NAMA officials when they came to the Committee of Public Accounts at the start of our meetings. The Comptroller and Auditor General's job is to compile reports, as he does, on anything that is put in front of him where public money is involved. In his opinion, there was a possible loss of €190 million. He did not say it was a loss but that there was a possible loss. Instead of NAMA trying to defend itself as to why a possible loss was mentioned in the report, its representatives actually aggressively attacked the Comptroller and Auditor General. I wondered why they were doing that. Were they guilty of something? Was there a reason for their attacking him? Why did they not come and try to explain how it had happened, rather than being aggressive?

There are a lot of question marks over the sale. First and foremost, why was it a loan sale? I believe it was a reverse sale that had been instigated by PIMCO. Before it sold it all off in one block, sales were always made individually. I question whether NAMA had looked at selling the portfolio over four or five years. Would it have received more money in that way? It was never proved otherwise to me as a member of the committee. When PIMCO came in with an offer of €1.3 billion, was that the whole reason the project was sold in one go? If that was the case, PIMCO set the precedent, not anyone else. I also question why the process was closed to three or four bidders and eventually only two.

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