Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry. I do not know where I put it. I have it now.

NAMA was set up by Government and when it was first set up, many thought it was a good idea. Many felt that if NAMA held on to property owned by people, companies or banks with financial problems for long enough, it would realise substantial funding for the State. There has not been enough transparency with NAMA. People ask me why NAMA has not sold any of the properties it controlled by public auction or public tender and why it sold many properties in bundles. When it does this, it rules out the small people and the people who have an interest in a certain property. It sells a lot of bundles together or bundles up a lot of properties together which deprives many people of the opportunity of buying. We all know when a certain property goes for sale at public auction and people are interested in it, they drive it on and drive it up, because there could be two or three interested bidders. If there are more properties included, which they are not interested in, they are not as likely to show interest and they may not have the finance to buy a bigger bundle of properties together.

I support and welcome instances in which companies that lost everything during the collapse are given the opportunity to buy back some or all of the properties they lost.

They have worked hard to provide funding to buy back some of their properties. They had invested large sums, employed people and then lost much of what they owned when the market collapsed. I am glad some of these companies were able to buy back some of the properties they owned previously.

I am not sure the commission of investigation will provide anything positive, other than perhaps find out some of the things that should or should not have happened. I do not know how it will leave the country or economy financially better off. I hope the investigation does not go on forever. I hope, when its findings are published, we will wake up and realise that some of these inquiries, reports and tribunals are providing very little in the way of repaying taxpayers for what should or should not have happened, as the case may be. I am sceptical about the commission of investigation but I will go along with it until I see what it achieves. Many people are sceptical about commissioning more investigations, reports and tribunals because previous inquiries have not delivered many financial benefits for taxpayers.

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