Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have great respect for the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General, as I do for the Minister, but I still believe the Minister should get involved. Avestus took over Quinlan Private in 2010. The three principal directors, Olan Cremin, Thomas Dowd and Peter Donnelly, had borrowed heavily during the boom, mainly from Anglo Irish Bank, and owed €489 million when the crash came. The €489 million went across to NAMA and NAMA assembled a portfolio with €352 million of this debt, naming it Project Nantes. The three boys went off to America to find someone to put up the money and found a company called Clairvue. They then set up a shelf company in Luxembourg called Clairvue Nantes and installed another director of Avestus, Mark Donnelly, as a director of the Luxembourg company. He had been a director of Avestus since 2010 and became a director of Clairvue in 2012. The company bought Project Nantes for €26.6 million, with a discount bringing the price to under 10% of the original value. This sale is in breach of the NAMA Act for multiple reasons. It was off market, at a knock-down price and, worst of all, the purchaser was connected to the debtor, which is illegal under section 172 of the NAMA Act.

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