Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I move:

That Dáil Éireann shall consider the Report of the Committee of Public Accounts entitled Examination by Committee of Public Accounts of NAMA’s Sale of Project Eagle, copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 15 March 2017.

I thank the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts for presenting this report to the Dáil today and the committee members for their efforts in producing this report. As a former Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, I fully appreciate the important role the committee plays. As Members are aware, I have taken issue with certain conclusions expressed in the report regarding meetings with Cerberus, which is where I will begin my contribution. I will then touch on the report more generally and will conclude with a few words regarding the establishment of a commission of investigation which will no doubt form part of today’s discussion.

Turning to the report’s criticisms of my involvement in the transaction, I am encouraged that the Committee of Public Accounts has accepted my long-standing position, derived from law, that in these circumstances it was not within the powers of the Minister for Finance to direct NAMA to halt the sales process. However, I am disappointed that, having resiled from this previously held position, the Committee of Public Accounts has conjured up other unjustified and unfounded criticisms of me and my officials, that these criticisms were leaked to the press, presumably by a member of the Committee of Public Accounts and that these criticisms found their way into the final report. I can only assume that the information was leaked in an effort to secure its inclusion in the final report, an action which, unfortunately, has politicised and compromised the integrity of the Committee of Public Accounts itself. The very fact that there was not unanimous agreement among Committee of Public Accounts members raises the question of whether such a criticism can be acceptable.

I and my Department refute absolutely the claims in the report that I and my officials acted inappropriately in meeting with Cerberus in March 2014. Following the leak and prior to publication of the report, I wrote to the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts outlining my strong objection to any such finding against me or my officials. I remain shocked that the Committee of Public Accounts disregarded due process and did not offer me or my officials the opportunity to discuss the committee's concerns even after I requested such an opportunity prior to the report’s finalisation.

The minute of the meeting with Cerberus is available on the Department of Finance website. It is there to read for all who are interested. It is accepted that there is a clear legal separation between the Minister for Finance and NAMA’s commercial operations and I am grateful that the Committee of Public Accounts has acknowledged this. It is entirely appropriate that I, as Minister for Finance, would meet the chairman of a major international investment fund, a former US Secretary of the Treasury, at his request, while he was in Dublin on business. It is also entirely appropriate that my officials would meet representatives of a firm which has a general investment interest in Irish assets. As the published documentation confirms, the meeting was arranged at the request of Cerberus and was high-level in nature. It would be very unusual and indeed inappropriate for any Minister for Finance not to meet such individuals and firms. I and other Ministers have many similar meetings in the course of our ministerial duties.

The meetings did not alter the fact that neither I nor my officials were involved in the Project Eagle sales process, which I believe the Committee of Public Accounts acknowledges. Had the Committee of Public Accounts invited me or the officials who attended to discuss these meetings, it would have better understood this position prior to publishing its report. It is disingenuous for certain members of the Committee of Public Accounts and the Chairman to question my integrity and that of Department of Finance officials, accusing us of not being forthcoming in our testimony. I would like to set out the facts that will reveal what has been nothing less than political grandstanding by certain members of the committee.

In response to parliamentary questions from Deputy Michael McGrath on 14 July 2015 and 24 September 2015, I provided information regarding the March 2014 meetings with Cerberus. That was over 12 months before I was asked to attend at the Committee of Public Accounts. On 3 of November 2015, all documents relating to the meetings with Cerberus were released to a journalist under a freedom of information request. On 20 November 2015, during their first meeting on the matter, Department of Finance officials provided records relating to Project Eagle to the Comprtoller and Auditor General, including all documents relating to the meetings with Cerberus in March 2014. The Comptroller and Auditor General and Deputy Michael McGrath had, in the public domain, all of the information about the meetings with Cerberus almost 12 months before I was invited to appear on a voluntary basis before the Committee of Public Accounts. The meetings with Cerberus were not an area of concern in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on Project Eagle published on 5 August 2016. He was provided with information regarding the meetings but he never mentioned any meeting with Cerberus in his report, so we must conclude that this meeting did not cause him any concern.

On 6 October 2016, during my appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts, committee members raised no questions regarding meetings with Cerberus. On 12 October 2016, following my appearance, the Committee of Public Accounts requested certain follow-up information from me. No information was requested regarding the meetings with Cerberus. On 3 November 2016 I responded to the Committee of Public Accounts request for information. Unsolicited and in the spirit of openness to assist the Committee of Public Accounts in its work, I provided all records which had been previously provided to the Comptroller and Auditor General in 2015. This included all documents relating to the Cerberus meetings. This correspondence was published on the Department of Finance website and remains publicly available. On 10 November 2016 Department of Finance officials, each of whom had attended the meetings with Cerberus in March 2014, appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts. The Committee of Public Accounts, which at this point had received the full documentation relating to the meetings, raised no question regarding these meetings during the many hours of questioning of my officials.

On 21 November 2016, the Committee of Public Accounts wrote to me requesting full details of my meeting with Cerberus in March 2014. On 8 December 2016, I responded to the request of the Committee of Public Accounts indicating that the details of these meetings had already been provided to the Committee of Public Accounts on 3 November 2016. I suppose I should have told it the Comptroller and Auditor General had got copies of everything a year previously. Since Project Eagle was the subject of its inquiry, I thought it would have had access to any documents the Comptroller and Auditor General had examined in bringing forward his report.

It is clear that, contrary to allegations made by some Committee of Public Accounts members, my officials and I were forthcoming and have nothing to hide. We have provided the information regarding these meetings a number of times to various parties, and no questions were ever raised. Indeed, I want to take specific issue with comments made by the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts in a "News at One" interview on the day the report was published. Deputy Fleming noted in regard to my appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts that I "chose not to be open and upfront". In his interview, he gave the impression that I had deliberately concealed the fact that I had met Mr. John Snow of Cerberus and that this was why the Committee of Public Accounts did not ask me about the meeting during the five hours of evidence I gave before it. The facts I have just outlined give the true position. Long before I appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy Fleming's colleague, Deputy McGrath, had been informed twice in replies to parliamentary questions of my meeting with Cerberus and the Comptroller and Auditor General had been informed in the course of his scrutiny of Project Eagle. If the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts was doing his job properly, he should have established these facts before he made allegations against me. In light of the false allegations made by Deputy Fleming in his RTE interview on the day the report was published, I am formally requesting that he clarify his position at the next meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts. I ask the Deputy tonight to withdraw this comment and reflect this on the record of the House.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Very defensive.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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It is the truth. I know you do not like the truth in your party.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Please, Deputy Cullinane.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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You make a profession out of not telling the truth.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Hang on a second here.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am entitled to tell the truth.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Cullinane made the same accusation. He should not be a hypocrite.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am entitled to tell the truth.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister has one minute.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister is concluding his remarks.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister has accused me of being a person who does not tell the truth. I am asking him to withdraw that remark.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister is concluding his remarks.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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With respect, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle-----

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is the implication Deputy Cullinane made against the Minister in his own remarks. It is exactly the implication he made against the Minister in his remarks.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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-----the Minister has made an accusation in this House that I am somebody who does not tell the truth. I am asking him to withdraw that.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I was referring to the Deputy's party, not to him personally.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I will give the Minister a minute.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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My officials and I have no concerns about the meetings with Cerberus. The meetings were publicly disclosed. The Comptroller and Auditor General raised no issue with the meetings. The Committee of Public Accounts raised no questions about the meetings during our appearances, yet criticism of these meetings was conjured up by the Committee of Public Accounts at the last minute. That is a criticism I cannot accept.

Regarding NAMA, many of the judgments in the report regarding the agency have been well rehearsed in the context of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. I recognise that the report of the Committee of Public Accounts does not claim that NAMA made a "probable loss", as was asserted in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. This is a very important fact. I have stated consistently that I support the work of NAMA. I have confidence that the board of NAMA is achieving its commercial mandate in accordance with the NAMA Act. I have also consistently stated that I respect the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. My position regarding both bodies is unchanged following the publication of the report of the Committee of Public Accounts. The NAMA Chairman and CEO are both dedicated public servants who have worked in the public interest throughout their distinguished careers. Neither is a stranger to defending his own position.

In the time available, I do not propose to address every aspect of the report of the Committee of Public Accounts. However, it is notable that NAMA has disputed the suggestion in the report that an alternative monetisation strategy would have delivered a better financial outcome.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I do not want to interrupt but I have given the Minister an extra minute.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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May I have an extra two minutes, with the permission of the House?

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Not unless it is with the agreement of the House.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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He needs to put his comments on the record.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Is it agreed? Agreed.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I thank my colleagues very much. It is fashionable to criticise NAMA. It is particularly fashionable for certain developers and their camp followers to do so. I noted further criticism of NAMA in a Sunday newspaper last weekend. Before Members accept as fact this seriously flawed analysis, they should read in full NAMA's rebuttal, which is available on its website.

I want to touch briefly on the topic of the commission of investigation as it will no doubt form part of later contributions. Following publication of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, the Taoiseach met party leaders in September and received submissions from party leaders on the issue. At a subsequent meeting with the party leaders in October, there was agreement in principle to establish a commission of investigation. That is still the Government's position. Since then, the Committee of Public Accounts has undertaken extensive hearings and has received extensive verbal and documentary evidence from NAMA, the Department of Finance and many of the companies involved in the Project Eagle bidding process. The Committee of Public Accounts has now published its report, which continues to support the commission of investigation. Before the Government makes a decision on how to proceed and drafts terms of reference, it will be important to hear the views of members of the Committee of Public Accounts tonight on a number of issues. In light of the extensive evidence collected and work already completed by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts and in light of the ongoing investigations in multiple foreign jurisdictions, it is important that Members, in advising the Government, be able to answer the following questions. What would the commission investigate? Where could the commission add value beyond the work already done by the Comptroller and Auditor General and Committee of Public Accounts? What could a commission achieve in light of ongoing criminal and other investigations, and the fact that many potential witnesses and evidence are located outside the jurisdiction? How much might such a commission cost, and would the results of such a commission justify the use of scarce budgetary resources? I am sure today's contribution will be made with these questions in mind. It is the Government's policy to establish a commission of investigation.

Before I conclude, I would like to return briefly to findings against NAMA. There is certainly much to discuss on the various conclusions — corporate governance arrangements, record-keeping and management of conflicts of interest. I believe the NAMA board and executives have provided reasoned and rational disclosures throughout the many Committee of Public Accounts sessions they have attended on these matters. Members of the House can assess that evidence themselves. However, let us remember that the overarching conclusion of the Committee of Public Accounts is that "NAMA has been unable to demonstrate that by pursuing such a strategy that it got value for money for the Irish State". In this House tonight, we should remember that it is equally true that the Committee of Public Accounts has been unable to demonstrate that by pursuing such a strategy, NAMA did not get value for money for the Irish State. NAMA has stated that it was and remains the NAMA board's commercial and considered judgment, in full knowledge of the financial implications, that this sale provided a better financial outcome than any alternative monetisation strategy.

With that in mind, I will conclude. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the injury time. I thank colleagues for allowing me to complete my few words here this evening. We should now allow NAMA to complete its mandate in the manner it has to date, by using its commercial judgment to continue to maximise returns to the State.

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am sharing my time with Deputy Sean Fleming.

I thank each member of the Committee of Public Accounts for the enormous work they put into this process and the completion of the report. I thank the Chairman, in particular, for his diligence and professionalism in steering that process.

The Minister has just made a very ill judged speech. As a sitting Minister for Finance, he has launched an unprecedented attack on the Committee of Public Accounts of this House. He has launched a scathing attack on the Chairman of that committee and on his integrity. He has made the very deliberate choice to dedicate the vast majority of his speech to defending his own personal position and that of his Department. It is very clear from his remarks that he does not accept the report of the Committee of Public Accounts. He has certainly not put on the record that he accepts the report. He has completely ignored the core findings and conclusions set out in that report. It is unequivocally clear that he does not want to see any commission of investigation into Project Eagle. That is as clear as night follows day.

That leaves us in a position where the Taoiseach has repeatedly reassured the House that there would be a commission of investigation but the Minister came to the House tonight to pour as much cold water on that as he could possibly find.

What the Minister completely ignored in his contribution is what I would regard as the central finding of the Committee of Public Accounts, which was that the sale of Project Eagle was marked by inadequate record-keeping, weaknesses in the management of conflicts of interest, a seriously deficient sales process and, ultimately, an inability by NAMA to demonstrate it had obtained the best value for money for the State. We have a situation where the constitutional office of the Comptroller and Auditor General has, in an entirely independent fashion, completed a report which made serious findings against NAMA. The Committee of Public Accounts, the committee empowered by the House to examine the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General, has found in favour of the Comptroller and Auditor General and not in favour of NAMA. That is the broad conclusion that is evident when one reads the report. However, the Minister clearly does not accept the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General or the position of the Committee of Public Accounts. He is standing four-square behind NAMA. That is where we are tonight. Let us not dress it up or put a tooth in it. That is the situation with which we are faced.

I have read all the documentation again and I have tried to be as independent as I possibly can be. There is no doubt in my mind that the Project Eagle sales process was fundamentally flawed. It was not a genuinely open or competitive sales process from the very beginning because the origin of it came from the approach made to NAMA through Brown Rudnick on behalf of PIMCO. There are several matters which blow me away. Mr. Frank Cushnahan, a member of NAMA’s Northern Ireland advisory committee, declared to the committee on several occasions in 2011 and 2012 that he was acting in an advisory capacity to NAMA debtors in Northern Ireland. Apparently, these were half the book value of all NAMA debtors in Northern Ireland but he was allowed to remain on the committee. For the life of me, I cannot get my head around that. When it became clear that he was part of the success fee arrangement involving PIMCO, Brown Rudnick, Tughans and the €16 million to be shared, NAMA never contacted him. He had left the advisory committee at that stage but NAMA did not even bother its backside to contact him to ask what that was all about.

The Minister did not even acknowledge these issues in his 13-minute contribution in the House tonight. It was very ill-judged on his part for the Minister to use his entire contribution to defend his own personal position. To put my view on the record, it was inappropriate and ill-judged for the Minister to hold a meeting on the eve of the close of bids. Nobody is impugning the Minister's integrity or saying his motives were in any way questionable. I do not believe they were. However, I believe it was the wrong decision. The Minister should take it on the chin and accept it. The Minister's speech tonight was disgraceful.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Hear, hear.

Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the opportunity of speaking to this motion. I had hoped the debate would be on the NAMA report, but the Minister feels it is all about him. It was not about him at all. It was about NAMA. There are 101 pages in the report and only two paragraphs about the Minister, but he thinks it is all about him.

The litany of information the Minister made available was not relevant to the Committee of Public Accounts. He spoke about documents released on 3 November 2015 which were sent to a journalist. They were not released to us. He spoke about information sent to the Comptroller and Auditor General. The committee does not have access to the Minister's private papers and he knows that. The Minister mentioned he replied to parliamentary questions in 2015. I will remind him that the majority of members of the Committee of Public Accounts who examined this matter were not Members of this House in 2015. Eleven of the 13 members of the committee were not members of the committee when he made the statement and released the freedom of information request to a particular journalist.

The Minister was invited like every other witness to attend the committee. Many of them came from further distances and voluntarily. We gave the Minister no credit for coming voluntarily because he knows we could have compelled him had we chosen to do so. We expected people to be open and upfront at the committee. We asked the Minister for his assistance. He was aware of that meeting with Cerberus, but the members of the committee were not. He had five hours to be helpful to the committee but he chose not to be helpful. He was the one who held information back. He complained the committee did not ask him about something about which we knew nothing. He was the one in possession of the information. It is a little bit rich of the Minister to complain that we did not ask him about something when he was the only person in the room who knew about that meeting on that particular occasion.

On my comment which he has taken exception to, I will repeat it again. We modified the report to say that it was not procedurally incorrect. The Minister has misled the Dáil tonight by claiming that we said the Minister acted inappropriately. We never said that in the report. The report stated it was procedurally incorrect. That means that the procedure that allowed those meetings was inappropriate. We never said the Minister was inappropriate. I do not know why he reacted in the way he did. Had the Minister taken the actual time to read the report, he would know we did not use the words he apportioned today in that regard.

We were more than fair to the Minister. He was not fair to the committee by sitting for five hours in possession of information when he knew, as the line Minister, that we were investigating the sale of Project Eagle. He had information about a meeting between himself and the chairman of Cerberus on the day before the close of bids and the chairman was subsequently meeting the NAMA senior executives after he met the Minister. The Minister was the only one in possession of that information. He was the one who was unfair to the Committee of Public Accounts, not the other way around. We were more than fair to the Minister. The Minister wrote to the committee expressing his views on the committee’s draft report. The committee included the full text of his three-page letter in our report to give absolute balance. We gave the full version of his view on the matter. We were utterly fair to the Minister.

The Minister sent that letter to the committee on 15 February 2017. I went into the Oireachtas restaurant that evening and the Minister asked me to come over to have a chat with him. He told me that I was unfair to him by not inviting him to the committee. I told him he was unfair to the committee by keeping the information for five hours. He concluded the conversation by saying that he can injunct me. Shame on the Minister for Finance for wanting to injunct the Committee of Public Accounts for doing its job. I wrote it down. He said to me, “I can injunct you”. For a Minister for Finance to threaten the Committee of Public Accounts is the most inappropriate thing any Minister for Finance has done in my lifetime.

The Minister should withdraw that threat here now and apologise to the Committee of Public Accounts. I would go so far as to question the Minister’s fitness for office when he threatens the Chair and the 13 members of the Committee of Public Accounts with injuncting them for doing their job. The Minister came in here tonight with more of the same bluster trying to threaten the Committee of Public Accounts. We will be here long after he is gone.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The man beside the Deputy, Deputy Michael McGrath, knew about the Cerberus meeting for 12 months before the Deputy asked me to come in. The Comptroller and Auditor General also knew about it for 12 months.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I call Deputy McDonald who is sharing time with Deputy Pearse Doherty.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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It is up to Deputy Fleming to find out about these things. It was all in the public domain.

Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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That is called being economical with the truth. The Minister gave the game away. He was hiding it.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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It was all in the public domain. You are a disgrace.

Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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You are unfit for office.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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You should resign as Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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This is like Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Members have had their opportunities to speak. I call Deputy McDonald who is sharing time with Deputy Pearse Doherty.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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You are a disgrace.

Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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I am not a disgrace. You are unfit for office for judging the Committee of Public Accounts.

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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What you did in RTE was a disgrace.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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If Members want, they can arrange to meet outside to continue the discussion. In here, I will decide who speaks. I call Deputy Mary Lou McDonald.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister is in fierce bad form. That is too bad. This is not all about him. It is news to me that he threatened to injunct the Committee of Public Accounts. Shame on him if that is the case. I suppose that mirrors the approach and the attitude he displayed this evening. Quite frankly, I could not give a curse what his view is of Sinn Féin. I do take exception to him levelling positions against my colleague, Deputy David Cullinane, however. That is the demonstrable evidence that the Minister is on the back foot

The Minister has clearly read the report, he does not like what is in it, so he thought he would come in and talk about himself for ten or 12 minutes. Perhaps within the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party that is a deeply fascinating topic but it leaves me rather cold.

What we are interested in is the substance of the report. It is important to say at the outset that our work conducted over 11 meetings between 29 September and 14 December 2016, having heard 57 hours or oral evidence and having received in the region of 3,000 pages of written evidence in regard to the matters at hand, absolutely vindicates the position of the Comptroller and Auditor General. That is it in a nutshell. As the Minister knows, the Comptroller and Auditor General was subjected to a vicious and an unprecedented attack from the board of NAMA. He was subjected to a very similar attack in intent, if not in tone, from the Department of Finance. Long before the Project Eagle report was even published, NAMA and the Department of Finance - the Minister, Deputy Noonan's Department - were out of the traps telling all and sundry that the Comptroller and Auditor General did not know what he was talking about, that he was out of his depth and that the only people in all of Ireland who knew how to sell property, according to him, and how to make deals were his friends in NAMA. It was only after hours of questioning at committee that NAMA finally had to admit and concede that its public criticisms of the Comptroller and Auditor General were not based on fact. Given the fact that the Minister's Department and the State agency were quite prepared to attack a constitutional office for the simple act of doing their job and doing it thoroughly and fairly, we should not be a bit surprised that the Minister would come in and attack the rest of us this evening.

Let us recall what the report tells us, and it is very shocking. Anybody who was uneasy about Project Eagle and the probable loss, which is echoed in the report of the Committee of Public Accounts, would be even more uneasy having sat through the hours of evidence and if they were to read our report. The idea of a northern debtor-based strategy for NAMA originated with a man called Ian Coulter of Tughans solicitors in Belfast, another man named Frank Cushnahan who had been appointed to the Northern Ireland advisory committee of NAMA, a NAMA insider, and a third person called Tuvi Keinan of Brown Rudnick, a firm in London. They approached at least two funds with the idea of this debtor sale and one of them, PIMCO, decided to go with it. This is where it gets interesting because politics gets involved.

The DUP in the person of Sammy Wilson got involved. He wrote to the Minister - it is all reported faithfully in this report - in support of PIMCO's approach. Interestingly at this stage, NAMA decided to change its sales strategy. It moved away from one based on working out the loans until 2020 to one based on bundling them all together and selling them in what they describe as a "bespoke process", that is, one designed specifically to meet the needs of PIMCO. All of this was happening while Frank Cushnahan, a Government appointee, was a member of the Northern Ireland advisory committee of NAMA. He left in November 2013 and two months later the NAMA board decided to go with the sale of the northern portfolio - which we now call Project Eagle - with a minimum price of €1.3 billion. Despite months of requests and the submission of thousands of pages of documents, NAMA was unable to produce any contemporaneous evidence to explain how the board arrived at that €1.3 billion figure. As it happens, PIMCO had already told the NAMA board in September 2013 that it would be willing to pay up to €1.3 billion for the portfolio, a rather curious coincidence. It is a matter of curiosity that the two figures coincided and there is no paperwork - I repeat no paperwork - for the calculation behind that €1.3 billion sales price. There is no paperwork because there was no sophisticated calculation. That should bother the Minister. It should alarm him.

While all of this was going on the head of NAMA knew that Frank Cushnahan was representing, as has been said, the interests of the five largest northern property developers on the books of NAMA, and Frank Daly knew all of this and he did nothing. Similarly, when NAMA found out in March 2014 that Frank Cushnahan was involved in a fixer fee arrangement, the response, according to our evidence, was to try to keep PIMCO, the payer of that fee, within the process.

On 13 March at a very crucial meeting, the board of NAMA met and it is clear to me from the minutes of that meeting that the board was informed of Frank Cushnahan's involvement in the genesis of Project Eagle and this whole sales process going way back. The board tells us otherwise. It claims that is not the case but that is simply not credible. It is not credible that the board only found out of Frank Cushnahan's involvement, and assumed then that he only got involved in all of this, once he had resigned from the NAMA northern committee.

I could go on and on but I will not. Suffice to say, having just scratched the surface of a single transaction - because bear in mind our committee was limited in its powers of investigation - what we found was very troubling. The big question is this: was Project Eagle an outlier? Was this an exception? Was it exceptionally sloppy, comprised and corrupted or was and is Project Eagle the norm? That is the issue. If the Minister, Deputy Noonan, was doing his job, beside coming in here giving us guff, that is the issue that would be sounding a big alarm bell in his head and it is the reason we absolutely need a commission of investigation.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I commend the work of the Committee of Public Accounts and in particular that of my colleagues, Deputies Cullinane and McDonald, as well as the work of the former Finance Minister in the North, Maírtín Ó Muilleoir, who worked tirelessly to bring this scandal to light. I also recognise the role the late Martin McGuinness play in regard to the committee.

Almost three years ago on 15 April 2014 I asked the Minister the first question that was asked in this House about the sale of Project Eagle and what I got in response was the usual waffle. It is important that we ask ourselves to imagine how different things could have been and would have been, had the Minister for Finance answered the question I asked instead of deflecting it away. I asked him directly about the number of bidders. Imagine if, instead of avoiding that question, he had been upfront and had told us the information that was at his and at NAMA's disposal at that time, namely, that a bidder had withdrawn because of allegations of fixer's fees. Imagine if he had told us that bidders had withdrawn because they knew that other bidders had an advantage, having access to the data room. I asked the Minister if he had instructed NAMA to sell the loan book and imagine if, instead of the nonsense he gave me in terms of improved market conditions in NAMA, he had responded to that question, had been upfront and honest with me and with this House and had told us that the approach came from three individuals, from Frank Cushnahan, Tughans and Brown Rudnick. Imagine if we knew that the approach had come from two of the vulture funds acting on their behalf, information that the Minister and NAMA knew at that point in time. Imagine if he told us that politicians in the North were lobbying him in respect of that. All of this information was known at that time but the Minister chose not to disclose it to this House. Now, three years later, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts are clear that the process has cost the Irish people a probable loss of €230 million.

The Minister has come out swinging here today but it is indefensible, without a shadow of a doubt, that he met the bidder so close to the sale. It is appalling if he threatened to injunct the members of the Committee of Public Accounts. We believed on this side of the House that those tactics were left to Denis O'Brien. When I asked the question about the sale, that sale was not formally concluded. It was announced but it was not formally concluded. There was time at that time to admit that the process had been corrupted, time to withdraw the State from the sale that was mired in dirt and controversy. Instead of taking that opportunity to be transparent, the Minister blustered through by giving a non-response. Transparency was to be avoided at all costs.

Commercial sensitivity and other clichés were used when the Government decided that the people did not deserve-----

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith agat.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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-----the accurate and the real information, and we have paid the price for it.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith agat.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I will conclude on this, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Now we are left to implement what we agreed in Government Buildings, that is, to establish a commission of investigation and convene the leaders of the political parties and the Independent groups in Government Buildings so we can agree the terms of reference. To introduce new red herrings to the debate-----

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Go raibh maith agat.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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-----is not acceptable. We have already agreed across the political divide that this needs to happen, and no amount of backsliding on the matter will change that.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I wish to start not with the detail that has been discussed but the bigger picture at stake in all of this. There was a report by Jim Power which received some publicity on Sunday. With all the news of Garda matters and the bus strike, it has been somewhat drowned out. This is very unfortunate because what the report suggests is pretty explosive and makes even the Apple scandal pale in comparison. It suggests we have lost out to the tune of €18 billion on NAMA's disposal of assets far beneath their value. It goes without saying that such an amount of money could utterly transform the situation of this country and resolve our housing and homelessness emergency, the crisis in our health services and much more besides. If one adds this sum to those in respect of the Apple case and the other tax loopholes benefiting the corporate sector, if these practices were not happening, it would utterly transform the lives of Irish citizens. If there is even a whit of truth in what - I wish the Minister would stop having a private conversation while I am trying to speak. This is a scandal beyond scandals. I know the pressure is on our friends in the media with all the various significant events happening but I appeal to them to look seriously into what is alleged in Mr. Power's report. It suggests that what we glimpse from one matter, namely, Project Eagle and the loss of several hundred million euro, as alleged by the Comptroller and Auditor General and confirmed by the Committee of Public Accounts in its report, may be only the tip of a massive iceberg.

When one considers what happened in Project Eagle, any sum even close to that €18 billion - half of it or even a third or a quarter of it - would be a scandal beyond scandals. Was this failure of NAMA to deliver and protect the public interest to the tune of those billions all the result of murky dealings, insiders, conflicts of interest and the failure of NAMA to protect the public interest or people, such as Mr. Cushnahan, advising NAMA and being involved in, frankly, what looks like incredible corruption? Was this happening elsewhere or indeed right across the board?

I find it quite extraordinary in this regard that the Minister, Deputy Noonan, would respond in the way he did to the questions raised about his meeting with Cerberus, as if the appropriateness or otherwise of the meeting with Cerberus is not a legitimate question to ask. When one thinks of what is at stake in Project Eagle itself, but also far beyond it, does the fact of the Minister for Finance meeting with Cerberus - and I think there were 60 other meetings with these property investors and vulture funds - not beg very serious questions? I am not alleging any impropriety. The Minister has said that Cerberus raised the issue briefly but that it was said it would not be appropriate to discuss it at the meeting. Deputy Fleming has just reminded me that directly after that, Cerberus went to meet NAMA, at which point, presumably, the matter was discussed. It is deeply worrying that the issue was discussed the day before the process concluded and that Cerberus met the Minister for Finance and then went to discuss it with NAMA, given that all this and the finders' fees had happened previously with Frank Cushnahan. This is a process designed by Mr. Cushnahan and PIMCO whereby corruption is seriously at play and, effectively, that process he designed remains the process through which the sale eventually took place.

Mr. Cushnahan left the scene but nobody pulled him up, called foul at the time or stopped the sales process. This should have been done immediately when it was discovered he was representing the NAMA debtors in the North, or significant numbers of them, and that fixers' fees were involved. It is incredible that the whole process was not stopped at that moment, but it was not. Therefore, when one thinks of what is at stake, for the Minister to get uppity and say we do not really have a right to ask these questions or impugn him is quite shocking.

One can only conclude, when one considers all this, that we need to root out the truth about everything NAMA did, about all these sales processes and about whether Project Eagle and all the murky dealings and questions that arise from it would be found to be very similar in other sales processes. In this regard, I wish to refer to something to which I referred in the last debate as another example, and I am sure there are many more. I refer to the Spencer Dock development and Mr. Johnny Ronan. One element of Project Eagle is that the deal designed by Mr. Cushnahan on behalf of these developers was - Could people stop talking? It is difficult to concentrate when Deputy Mattie McGrath is having a conversation. One critical part of the arrangement was that the personal guarantees of these developers would be written off. They would be back in business as part of the deal whereby PIMCO or Cerberus would come in and buy Project Eagle at a discounted price. These guys, who had given personal guarantees, would have those personal guarantees disappeared for them so that they could get back into business, and they have. Mr. Kearney is back in business. That was one of the effects of this arrangement. This is exactly what happened with Johnny Ronan in a similar process in respect of Spencer Dock.

I remind the Minister of State, Deputy Murphy, of what Deputy Enda Kenny said in 2011 about NAMA developers getting back their assets at the end of the NAMA process. When he was questioned about this in 2011, he specifically said, "I hope that NAMA are on top of that, and that where NAMA have acquired assets they don't find their way back to where they were acquired from in the first place." Yet this is exactly what happened with Mr. Johnny Ronan. Treasury Holdings, including the Spencer Dock development, owed more than €1 billion to NAMA and were taken over by NAMA.

Another US-based investor fund pays off his debts or does a deal with NAMA for €300 million and now he is back in control of the Spencer Dock site, which is worth approximately €600 million. These US-based investors act as proxies to get him off the hook and get around the stipulation in the NAMA legislation that NAMA developers should not end up owning their assets at a discount, which is paid by the public because of the failure to realise the full value of those assets. The suggestion in the files sent anonymously to us, probably by rival developers, not that it matters because the point remains valid, is that they bought those assets back for €42 million but comparisons with similar sites in the docklands suggest the actual value of those sites is in the region of €100 million to €120 million. Mr. Ronan gets back stuff he was never supposed to get back for €42 million, with the assistance of these US funds, although it is worth approximately €100 million or €120 million.

These are just two examples that stink to high heaven and this can of worms must be opened and fully investigated and every sale and disposal of NAMA assets has to be investigated.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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I am not easily shocked. I have been here only six years but I have never heard anything like what I heard from the Minister. I was shocked by it. I was also shocked by his personal attack on the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts. I thank the Chairman and all the members of the PAC for the work they did. It is a powerful report and given the remit they had they did incredibly well.

The Minister might want it to be all about him but people say it is not all about him. I think, however, it might suit the Minister to have it about himself because he has been very fond of taking the focus away from NAMA where the focus should be. Let us talk about NAMA.

I read the report twice, then went back over it and marked it. The committee report states:

The Committee's view is that the Sale of Project Eagle was marked by inadequate record keeping, weaknesses in relation to the management of conflicts of interest, a seriously deficient sales process and, ultimately, an inability by NAMA to demonstrate that it had obtained best value for money for the State. ... It is the opinion of the Committee that NAMA's failure to effect Mr Frank Cushnahan's removal from the Northern Ireland Advisory Committee ... was a failure of corporate governance by NAMA.

Frank Cushnahan made declarations of interest to the Northern Ireland advisory committee, NIAC, on 13 April 2011; 27 June 2011 and 18 October 2011 and in June 2012 he was reappointed to the board. The Minister for Finance said:

I would like to thank Frank Cushnahan and Brian Rowntree for agreeing to continue serving on NAMA's Northern Ireland Advisory Committee. I see this Committee as having a very important role in assisting NAMA to meet its objectives on both sides of the border. It is very important that NAMA, like other agencies, acts on an all-island basis.

Did he not know the information Cushnahan had already given to the NIAC? If he did not why not?

The report continues:

it is the view of the Committee that NAMA was influenced by the PIMCO proposal when deciding on the minimum reserve price, and key elements of the sales process. ... The decision by NAMA not to inform Lazard, its loan sales advisor, of the reasons for PIMCO's withdrawal indicates limits to the role that Lazard was given in relation to the sales process.

Its task was backside covering. The committee report continues "the letter of comfort provided by Lazard to NAMA [failed] to provide assurance that the sales strategy followed by NAMA in relation to Project Eagle was the best one possible." NAMA's single sale process was ridiculous.

The committee report states:

Lazard was provided with a verbal briefing on 13 January 2014 having originally signed a non-disclosure agreement ... on 9 January 2014. NAMA's evidence to the Committee was that it did not have any briefing document or minutes of this initial briefing.

NAMA had no briefing document yet it paid Lazard over £4 million. The report states "The Board agreed an exception to Loan Policy wherein the data room would contain redacted November 2009 valuations for the Top 55 properties (85% by value) and full valuations for the balance of 800 properties (15% by value)." All the information for the main stock was not available to everybody but it was available to anyone who was prepared to pay the cabal that was orchestrating the whole sale.

On 12 December 2013 Ronnie Hanna, head of asset recovery in NAMA at the time, presented a paper to the board which called for a closed sale and set the price at £1.3 billion. The committee found this unacceptable. The December 2013 paper presented by Ronnie Hanna was a sales pitch for PIMCO but it was not all about PIMCO. It was really a sales pitch for the developers in Northern Ireland who had Frank Cushnahan as their adviser, Dave Watters as their accountant, Tughans as solicitors and their man in NAMA, Ronnie Hanna. I have uncovered an internal NAMA e-mail of 11 December 2013, the day before the paper was presented to the board from Cian Kealy, a member of Ronnie Hanna's asset recovery team to Tuvi Keinan of Brown Rudnick, who was working with Cushnahan and Ian Coulter from 2012. Cian Kealy wrote it would be a "big day" tomorrow. Keinan replied that they looked forward to it. I bet they did. It was a big day all right, when the NAMA board was hoodwinked by the head of asset recovery. It has emerged from the PAC hearings that the NAMA board destroyed the handwritten notes taken at that board meeting on 12 December 2013. It would. In any other country the destruction of records by a state organisation would amount to serious criminality but not in Ireland. Speaking of destroying records, in March 2015, the month before NAMA records became accessible under freedom of information it became NAMA policy to delete the e-mails deemed "non-business critical" of all former NAMA staff 12 months after they had left the agency. Even more worrying is the fact that NAMA board members' e-mails would be deleted as soon as they had left. The destruction of key records will certainly make life more difficult for the commission of investigation.

I have also received correspondence from Namaleakson NAMA's freedom of information system. One is from an ex-NAMA employee who says that when working in NAMA staff were made aware of the protocols and procedures regarding freedom of information requests. However, there was a facility to quickly search for and recover any e-mails deleted from in-boxes. It seems that the freedom of information guys could not search this. The individual does not believe that proper searches were carried out as not all in-boxes were searched. The Minister should immediately suspend NAMA's policy of deleting e-mails and records but he is unlikely to do that.

The power that NAMA wields knows no bounds. A report published last weekend by Jim Power and Lisney estate agency estimated that NAMA had lost the Irish people €18 billion through its policy of fire-selling to vulture funds. Yesterday Lisney retracted its support for the report because NAMA let it be known that it would never sell another piece of property through Lisney if it did not do so. What is it like? For over six years there has been an incestuous relationship between the Department of Finance and the US vulture funds, which have bought up large parts of this island. The Committee of Public Accounts report finds that it was inappropriate for the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, to meet Cerberus the day before the bids were due for NAMA's Project Eagle and it is right. That was not the first time this happened. At the same time as the NAMA Northern Ireland loan sale was going on, the liquidator for the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC, was in the process of selling Project Sand, which comprised 12,700 Irish residential mortgages from the former Irish Nationwide Building Society with a par value of €1.8 billion. The bidding for Project Sand closed on 15 March 2014 but it seems some bidders sought to influence the sales process through meetings and engagements with Department of Finance officials. On 23 January 2014 the Minister met Lone Star, a US vulture fund, in Davos.

Later that week, on 28 January, John Moran, Secretary General of the Department of Finance at the time, met Lone Star in Merrion Street. The briefing e-mail Lone Star sent to John Moran stated Lone Star had recently reiterated its strong desire to acquire a significant portion of the IBRC assets currently for sale and was currently actively involved in a number of IBRC loan sale processes, including Project Sand. On 14 March 2014, the day before bids were due for Project Sand, the Secretary General, John Moran, received an e-mail to arrange another meeting, this time with Oaktree Capital, another US vulture fund which was also in the running for Project Sand. Like in the case of Lone Star, the request for a meeting was accepted. Oaktree Capital e-mailed the Department of Finance, looking for a meeting. It stated the reason for calling was to see if Mr. Moran could spare ten or 15 minutes of his time to discuss Project Sand and Oaktree's approach to the sale. It stated that Oaktree would the next day submit its final bid for the mortgage loans being sold by the special liquidators of IBRC and that if Mr. Moran had a few minutes, Oaktree would very much appreciate an opportunity to discuss its approach to the management of the acquired mortgage loans.

There were 13 indicative bidders for Project Sand. Who were the winners? Two of them, believe it or not - Oaktree and Lone Star. They split the portfolio between them. How convenient is that?

It seems it will stand a US vulture fund in good stead, if they are bidding on NAMA or IBRC loans, to meet and engage with the top officials in the Department of Finance in the months before, weeks before and even - incredibly - on the day before the bids are due. That approach worked for Cerberus, Oaktree and Lone Star, which between them have now bought nearly €50 billion of Irish loans. Is it proper policy for officials and the Minister for Finance to meet and engage with US vulture funds who are actively involved in bidding on Irish loans that are supposed to be for sale on the open market? There is no way it would happen in any other country in Europe.

Deputy McDonald asked if Project Eagle is the norm. I can assure her that it is. If we examine it, we will find that the total workings of NAMA will prove to be the biggest financial scandal in the history of this State. Are we are prepared to look at it or are we going to bury it for as long as we can like we did with other abuses over the years? The Minister for Finance should be ashamed of himself. Is he fit for his job anymore? No, he is not.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important topic. It is not a minute too early to set up this commission of investigation. I want to compliment, as I did earlier, Teachta Fleming and members of the Committee of Public Accounts for the outstanding work they have done. They are our last bastion in this House, as Teachtaí, representatives of the people, to deal with the scandals that go on.

I referred earlier to the unaccountability of the HSE for wastage in Cashel hospital. The committee is also dealing with the escalating costs of the national children's hospital, which has just been the subject of debate in the House. Members have no one else. Does the Minister want it shut down?

I have had great respect for the Minister for Finance. I was not present for his speech on this issue but I heard about what he said. I am very surprised that he would pour scorn on the Committee of Public Accounts. He has nearly threatened to injunct the committee. What is this - diktat by the Minister for Finance, the senior officials in the Department of Finance and the Secretary General and the Central Bank? They have plundered this country and they have allowed it to be plundered.

As I said during today's Leaders' Questions, the banks have been destroyed and we put €69 billion into them. Deputy Michael McGrath gave me a spin up from Cork on the fatal night of the bank bailout. I voted to rescue the banks. My God, it was some mistake. The banks gave us any figures they could to get us to bail them out. I will not say they told us lies but they told us untruths. They literally rode us backwards. I was there on the night NAMA was set up. It was like a wild animal being released in the woods and only God knew where it would end up. And now look where we are. One would think I was a prophet. Is there anywhere NAMA has not gone? It has gone all over the world and back. It stinks to high heaven. Why would it not? I am not impugning any individuals there but none of them had a clue. None of them ever hired a person, none of them ever made a shoe box, none of them had their own business. NAMA was staffed by bankers and officials and Revenue Commissioners that knew nothing about how the country has to work or how ordinary people have to earn their pay and put a roof over their heads.

The Central Bank let the banks throw people out of their homes at the same time as it was trying to deal with a housing crisis. However, it would not make the banks give out money to people. The banks have a monopoly. We cannot do what Germany does.

I asked today if it is any wonder that Britain voted for Brexit. They did so because of regulations. They can get money at 2% for SMEs in Germany, while we are at 8% here and 16% when the banks shove someone from a loan onto an overdraft. It is daylight robbery in front of our eyes. I am quite shocked.

We got a lot of diatribe and threats from Big Phil, the former Minister, the enforcer and his gang from 2011 to 2016. The public put paid to that. They gave them their marching orders. The public want the same thing to happen to NAMA.

I respect the Minister for Finance. He has given the House many more years service than I. I am shocked that he would use that kind of language against the Committee of Public Accounts. I do not know if he ever sat on the committee but many of his party colleagues over the years have. They have chaired the committee. I am shocked and disappointed and aghast. It is a bad day for democracy when the only watchdog we have, the Committee of Public Accounts, warts and flaws and all, is inhibited in the way its members have been. Certain gentlemen who I will not name have been judging them and threatening them and taking them on.

It is a sad day for democracy that we had this commission of investigation promised by a Taoiseach who is now in limbo. We learned about limbo when we learned about sins and confession. It is the place one goes if one is not too bad a sinner. One then waits a while. Some people say the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, is in the exit lounge. I say he is in limbo. He has to atone for the mistakes he made here. He has to live up to the promises he made. He had better live up to them because it is not like the snow that came last Wednesday and went a day afterwards because we are in spring. I hope he is going to clear up his offences against this House and his betrayal of people before he goes out of that exit lounge and goes off to meet people elsewhere. I cannot believe that the Minister, Deputy Noonan, would come in and do this tonight.

I welcome the opportunity to submit the actions, inactions and quare actions of NAMA to further parliamentary scrutiny and to remind it that it is not a law unto itself. It is not a wild animal running rampant in the woods with its tail docked.

On 14 March 2017, a report from the Committee of Public Accounts concluded that the sale of Project Eagle has recorded a loss of £162 million. How many mortgages could that money repay? How many houses could have been given to the county councils for the rent to buy scheme? It would solve half of our housing crisis. This is a staggering amount even if NAMA continues to claim that its actions were wholly compliant with best practice - my God - and that the price they achieved represented best value for money. Words could not describe it.

In its findings, the Committee of Public Accounts made a number of conclusions. The first finding is that the sale of Project Eagle was not a well-designed sales process, as evidenced by the poor quality of record keeping. Record keeping? A clerk selling sweets in a sweet shop in Offaly would be told how to keep records and would keep them and the records would be available or else the clerk would get his or her marching orders. The clerk might be only ten or 12 or 13 years of age.

The second finding is that NAMA’s failure to effect Mr. Frank Cushnahan’s removal from NAMA’s Northern Ireland advisory committee, following his disclosures in relation to provision of consultancy services on behalf of a number of NAMA’s Northern Irish debtors, was a failure of corporate governance. Consultancy fees. This country is rotten with them. They have overrun the place. They have overrun Government agencies and the HSE. People are retiring two days before they are made consultants to the HSE. They are then getting more money for obscene practices and they had not done what they should have done. As for the governance, my God. I say well done to the Committee of Public Accounts.

The third finding is that the NAMA board was not explicitly informed of the extent of the financial loss which would be recorded in NAMA’s accounts as a result of setting the minimum reserve price of £1.3 billion. It was the board's duty to be aware. It is a board paid by the taxpayers. The board members must ensure the board's enactments comply with statutory rights and laws and rules. This is codswallop. Again, I say well done to the Committee of Public Accounts.

The fourth finding is that key elements of the sales strategy were influenced by a firm, PIMCO, which made the initial approach to NAMA in respect of buying the Northern Ireland portfolio. We have PIMCO and Namco and Damco and Matco and every kind of "Co" but no one is accountable. It is disgraceful. These companies are fly-by-night cowboys that can do what they like just because they have a trading name.

The vulture funds are the same. I have an acronym I could use to describe them but it would not be PIMCO. I have heard of pin cushions for putting pins into; I know what I would do with the pins.

The fifth finding is that the sales strategy pursued by NAMA included restrictions of such significance that the strategy could be described as seriously deficient. Well done again to the Committee of Public Accounts. It was seriously deficient. There was a property for sale in my county that was in NAMA. In fairness to NAMA, when I contacted it somebody came back to be, albeit belatedly. A bidder arrived and put in a bid. Within 20 minutes of his bid being put in, the owner of the property that was in NAMA telephoned him and said, "You are trying to buy my property". The man replied that he was buying properties acquired by NAMA. The auctioneer, who is a Tipperary man, should have been sacked for going back with that information. That is what is going on in NAMA. It is a boys club, although there might be some girls in it, and what is going on is fraudulent in the extreme. A man put in a bid in good faith. Dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi go raibh póca ar an léine aige. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle knows what that means. The auctioneer took the bid and telephoned it through to the auctioneers in Dublin, a big fellow who is based not far from here. I will not name him but I hope the Minister knows where they are, and within 20 minutes - they had not time to drink a cup of coffee - the owner whose property was in NAMA phoned him and said, "You are trying to buy my property from NAMA and I want to buy it back". That property has gone back to the owner. When I contacted him he said the sale was withdrawn, and rightly so, but there was no investigation. That was partly my problem because the whistleblower who came to me did not want to go forward but now that it has been sold again I cannot find out about it. I write to NAMA and they tell me to write to someone else because they no longer have a vested interest in that. I do not know where it has gone. It is like the snow off the ditch. It has probably gone back to the man I mentioned, who is a Dungarvan man.

The sixth finding was that NAMA has been unable to demonstrate that by pursuing such a strategy it got value for money for the Irish State in respect of the price achieved. NAMA got no value for money for any of the properties; it got no value for anyone. "Dunnes Stores Better Value" was the slogan. NAMA would get value for money if it did a decent job but it got no value for anything because the people involved are literally a bunch of schoolboys. Obviously, they are career civil servants, as well as the former head of the Revenue Commissioners. They knew nothing about business. They were set up and pushed into those roles like a wild animal let into the woods. The sixth finding further states that each of those findings would be enormously damaging on their own but to have them combined reveals a level of reckless disregard for the people’s money that is utterly bewildering and yet, the Minister came in here this evening and tried to obstruct. The Minister of State, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is more interested in tweeting. I do not know if he is tweeting about the weather or tweeting for Enda to come back into the Chamber or whatever. I have said previously that people who tweet might become twats.

This is what we have come to expect from those who believe they are above scrutiny and that any holding of them to account represents political interference with their business. They have to be held to account. It is our job to do that, and I salute the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy Fleming, and others in that regard. They seem to be saying, "How dare the Oireachtas make a judgment against the all powerful NAMA". What are we here for? We are getting paid to do a job and we should do it. I will do it for the time I am a Member of this House because that is what the people sent me here to do. We can and must hold the powerful to account be they the people in NAMA, the Minister or whoever. It is the people's money they spend and we owe the people no less. These are the people who are turfed out on the road, who are before the courts and who have been evicted. Cromwell was not as bad. We resisted Cromwell in Clonmel, in Tipperary. He ran riot around the west of Ireland and other areas with his bat. If we think of Cromwell as NAMA, the people who will protect us are the Members of this House, including those who sat on the opposite side for the past four years.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Bogfaimid ar aghaidh go dtí an Teachta Catherine Murphy, atá ag roinnt a cuid ama leis an Teachta Eamon Ryan.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Six minutes and four minutes.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Let us have some clarification first, and the clock has not started. There is no ambiguity. The Standing Orders state that each group or party has ten minutes. It looks as if there will be about 30 minutes left for the members of the committee. Eight have offered-----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Nine.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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No. Those who have offered are Deputies Peter Burke, Shane Cassells, Catherine Connolly, David Cullinane, Alan Farrell, Marc MacSharry and Bobby Aylward.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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And Deputy Josepha Madigan.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I can only take the names as I find them in the House. I cannot second-guess for people who are outside and may wish to contribute. I will leave three minutes for the Minister to respond. That is not in the order but I think it is reasonable. Has anybody a problem with that? In that case we will move on.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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This debate was originally scheduled to take place last Thursday but because the Committee of Public Accounts meets on a Thursday, it was requested that it would meet on Wednesday. The reason this debate did not happen last Thursday was that the Minister would not be here. It is interesting that we have scheduled a debate to accommodate the Minister and he has stayed for a very short period of this debate.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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Hear, hear.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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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.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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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.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Well it would in my case, Deputy McDonald. It would help tremendously because we would have the facts in an open and transparent way. I still put the case for that amendment to the NAMA legislation as one of the ways of uncovering what exactly we got on all the different deals.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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As mentioned previously - it is on the record - I concur with most of the report by the Committee of Public Accounts into Project Eagle after sitting through countless days of evidence. Any State body needs to be able to demonstrate fully that it got value for money for the State and, unfortunately, due to inadequate record keeping, which has been accepted by NAMA, the Committee of Public Accounts had a limitation of scope in assessing this. Decisions were recorded but discussions were not. In a State agency where sensitive loan sales take place, discussions must also be recorded. I think this was a fundamental weakness of NAMA. It is my view that discussions should centre around NAMA because this is the subject of the report and an investigation surrounds this.

One of my biggest concerns about the sale of Project Eagle was that there was no evidence that a detailed risk assessment for a 10% discount rate for Project Eagle was discussed by the board of NAMA. When we assess the board minutes, only two risk assessment rates were used - 5.5% and 2.5%. I believe this is a fundamental weakness. My second concern relates to how NAMA dealt with conflicts of interest and the necessary safeguards to protect the agency from this. NAMA needed more robust procedures. Its process was clearly lacking in this regard.

However, I would also point out that there are a number of areas we must acknowledge. The Comptroller and Auditor General is very clear in that he is not making a commercial evaluation of this transaction. Page 48 of the report provides a reconciliation of NAMA and Comptroller and Auditor valuations to calculate the £189 million difference. Both values have an inherent weakness in terms of the evidence to test both the £39 million assumption of all cash falling due at year end - a course that, in theory, some property transactions follow as opposed to an even break of cash flow - and the £69 million of additional impairment. The £800 million recorded loss on the transaction is a book loss. It is recorded in the NAMA accounts. However, £570 million had already been written off between 2010 and 2013. Essentially, the loss on disposal was £230 million. We must be very clear that if that sale had been aborted and not followed through, the international accounting standard that is relevant to loan sales would require the loan book to be further impaired. That is very clear based on anyone's interpretation of the standard. Many do not want to acknowledge this but in respect of valuations, that is the correct procedure. The key issue in the investigation by the Committee of Public Accounts is that it assessed how exposed the State was on this occasion. That is very hard to assess. The Committee of Public Accounts is pretty clear on that in the report together with the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Many people have spoken about the performance of NAMA. NAMA acquired 15,000 loans with an original par value of €74.4 billion. The value on acquisition of these loans was €31.8 billion, which is essentially a crystallisation of 57%. However, while the par value is mentioned in the report, it is unfair to blame NAMA for the par value of pre-crash property prices. The Comptroller and Auditor General has commissioned section 226 tri-annual reports into NAMA. They showed no issues regarding other loan sales. NAMA is due to return a €2.3 billion surplus on its acquisition cost and we have to acknowledge this.

Obviously, there was no pressure on NAMA to sell Project Eagle. Anyone who suggests this lacks a basic understanding of NAMA. What is clear is that there was pressure on NAMA to dispose of its loan book. Ireland was unable to borrow on the open market. NAMA bonds of €31.8 billion were guaranteed by the State. We needed to break away from ECB emergency liquidity. We must not forget the environment in which NAMA operated. In 2011, expenditure in the country was running 50% ahead of income. Nobody now wants to acknowledge this.

If NAMA delayed in reducing the debt, ratings agencies would ensure that the State would not be able to make investment grade and we would continue to depend on ECB-IMF liquidity.



(Interruptions).

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I believe it is important-----

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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There are eight speakers and there are 33 minutes left. That would be approximately three minutes or three and a half minutes for the rest of the speakers.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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The Deputy has had seven minutes now.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I am asking him to conclude and I have already indicated this.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I will conclude in two-----

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Deputies are delaying their own time. They will get about four minutes each.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am a member of the Committee of Public Accounts and I will conclude.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Leas-Cheann Comhairle said about three minutes. Deputies will get approximately four minutes.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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On a point of order-----

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I will conclude.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will conclude please.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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On a point of order and as a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, I have been sitting here waiting and the Acting Chairman has not indicated to the Chamber-----

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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So have I.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Please, if I may finish, I asked the Acting Chairman and he said three or four minutes per member of the Committee of Public Accounts. It is now eight minutes later. It is very important that the Acting Chairman clarifies the position. I do not mind waiting but it is important that we know-----

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Connolly is delaying the opportunity to-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am not. I am seeking clarification. The Acting Chairman is being deliberately-----

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Chair has ruled. The Leas-Ceann Comhairle was in the Chair when I sat in and he gave me a list. I am going by the list with the exception of Deputy Josepha Madigan-----

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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It has now changed. The list-----

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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-----who indicated that she was here in the House prior to this. If not, I will take her in order. Are Deputies agreed that Deputy Madigan was in the House?

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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No.

Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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On a point of order, to be fair, I was not sure of the time. Deputy Madigan came up to me and her name was passed on. To be fair, she was there.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Deputies are spoiling their own time. This debate will conclude in 31 minutes and 46 seconds.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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Deputy Burke has had seven minutes.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Burke will finish up now or I will call the next speaker.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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This is ludicrous.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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In the National Asset Management Agency Act 2009 the word "expeditious" is mentioned twice. We must be very fair. The NTMA is now issuing ten-year bonds at 0.33% and treasury notes at negative yields. They peaked at 14% in July 2011 and NAMA played its part in getting this debt off the State balance sheet. My final point is on the terms of the commission of investigation-----

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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Deputy Burke is disrespecting his colleagues.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I admit that I did not indicate the time at the start. Based on the fact that the Leas-Ceann Comhairle indicated the time available for each person, I did not indicate to Deputy Burke. The Deputies are wasting their own time. I am now limiting each speaker. I ask Deputy Burke to resume his seat so we can continue with the next speaker. I invite Deputy Madigan and she has three minutes. Each speaker will have three minutes.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Acting Chairman.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Will the Acting Chairman please tell me when my time is up?

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Yes.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I will be very brief. The Minister of State, Deputy Eoghan Murphy referred to the National Asset Management Agency Act. NAMA was set up by the Fianna Fáil-led government in 2009 and was part of the troika bailout. Deputy Burke alluded to the word "expeditious" which was mentioned on numerous occasions in the Act. It is my personal view that haste was put before prudence. This affected NAMA and the sales process, which the report found was seriously deficient. I also have a reservation regarding the report's findings on the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan.

On the significant lack of competence or clarity, as well as information about NAMA's handling of the Project Eagle, there were three issues. One was the portfolio's valuation where there were no discussions or records of discussions about the sale, as Deputy Burke said. There were no formal valuations of property collateral and no formal expert advice was received. The second issue relates to the conflict of interest issues. No actions were taken to deal with success fee arrangements and if there were arrangements, they were unsatisfactory. There was no considered approach to the method of sale and haste appears to have been put before prudence. The third issue relates competition, or lack thereof, in the sales process. There was no adherence whatsoever to standard NAMA sales processes. There was also no openness, or at least there was a lack of openness, in the bidding process.

I appreciate that criminal investigations are ongoing and I will not comment on those. The main aspect of the report that I cannot endorse relates to the report's findings on the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, and the political manoeuvres in relation to the committee and his position on this matter. At the Committee of Public Accounts, the appropriateness of the Minister meeting with Cerberus - the eventual successful bidder - was not raised at any stage. The Minister spent many hours before the committee giving evidence and not once was he given an opportunity to deal with the assertion that the meeting was procedurally inappropriate. We must be very clear in the House that there is a legal separation between the Minister and NAMA. NAMA's commercial decisions are taken independently of the Minister for Finance. That appears to have been forgotten by many members of the Committee of Public Accounts. As someone who has put a huge amount of work and effort into Project Eagle and the flaws there - the Acting Chairman will concede that - I was dismayed by any sort of allegation of wrongdoing or even a hint of it with regard to the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan. I would not be able to stand over a report that endorses that point.

We must also remember that the meeting the Minister had with Cerebrus was already in the public domain and was the subject of a freedom of information request in November 2015. It is a pity. It is a last ditch attempt to bring party politics into the report.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Stop.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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It has distracted from-----

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Madigan can talk about party politics.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Let me finish please.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Her party is engaged in party politics when we want to talk about NAMA.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Let me finish.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Deputies are wasting their own time. Deputy Madigan will conclude.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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It has distracted from the substantive findings in the report. I very much regret that.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I now invite Deputy Shane Cassells. He has about three to three and a half minutes, as do the each of the remaining speakers.

Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Acting Chairman. I express my thanks to the Chairman, Deputy Sean Fleming, for his stewardship of the Committee of Public Accounts and for the report. I also thank fellow committee members and all the staff. As a new Deputy, it was an intriguing report to work on and the financial and political intrigue that evolved as the process went on showed how many players were involved. I think also of the late Martin McGuinness who accepted an invitation to come before the committee, unlike some from the Unionist community who chose to not come and give evidence.

As we neared the completion of the report, we moved from a discussion about the substantive issues into political issues, involving some, but not all, members. This was fuelled even further by some who chose to leak our working document to journalists. More amazingly, the Minister for Finance then responded to the leaked documents. The launch of the report, and the discussion here tonight, has been overshadowed by some Members' jibes such as that the report is revisionist or a last ditch effort. This is not helpful. Perhaps that was par for the course at the launch, but what has happened here tonight is disgraceful. I agree with Deputy Mick Wallace that the Minister was moving the focus. It was a smoke and mirrors job here by the Minister tonight.

It is worth remembering that the Fine Gael members of the committee, as part of their deliberations on the working document, were prepared to use the words "not advisable" regarding the Minister. Let us blow this away. Fine Gael committee members were prepared to say that it was not advisable for the Minister to have been at that meeting. That is the bottom line. It is being thrown back into the fire again and it is amazing to hear such comments from the members. A seasoned Minister came into the Chamber tonight and spoke for 15 minutes. He has a cheek to attack the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts and to defend NAMA. It was unbelievable. NAMA did not need defending. It did plenty of that itself when the NAMA representatives came to the committee. They used a scorched earth policy of attacking the committee in newspaper articles before they ever got near the committee room in the first place.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Hear, hear.

Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Finance officials were also well able to defend themselves and NAMA. If one reads the transcripts of those hearings, one would see a very certain point emanating from those meetings. When we came to our conclusions about procedurally inappropriate events, the language was very thin. It could have been a lot harder. Daniel McConnell from the Irish Examinerreported after the launch about the manner in which Fine Gael handled themselves in this respect and he summed up the whole process with one word at the end of his article - "farcical". Daniel had better get his Thesaurus out tonight.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The Minister is not fit to be a Minister after what he has presented tonight.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Come on.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy should stick to the motion.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I am sticking to the speech. The Minister for Finance came in here and used the words "conjured up" in his speech regarding the Committee of Public Accounts, which is an unjustified and unfounded criticism. He said the same thing later on. Once again, the Minister, like NAMA, has absolutely refused to deal with the substance of the report, in this case, its 32 conclusions. I missed none of the Committee of Public Accounts meetings. On every single occasion I asked each witness if he or she had read the report. It appears to me that NAMA and the witnesses who came before the committee had not, by and large, read the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. They had decided on their strategy in the paper before they ever came before the Committee of Public Accounts. The Comptroller and Auditor General had found, before us, that there were questions about the financial outcome of the loan sale process and the management of conflicts of interest. The committee then went through all of these and gave a chance to every single witness to come before the committee. Not once did politics raise its head in that committee room until the very final vote regarding words.

What Deputy Cassells has said is very important. There was a disagreement over whether it was "advisable." If we agreed with Fine Gael colleagues that "advisable" was the word, there would be no split vote.

What the Minister is trying to do here, as he has already tried to do with NAMA, is lead the narrative. Let me lead the narrative, from what I have seen. There are most serious questions to be asked about the sales process, the failure to follow up on a conflict of interest, the restriction of the number of bidders, and any other number of flaws. There is, unfortunately, a serious need for an inquiry. The major reason is the failure of this Chamber once again, and particularly of the Government Deputies, to hold NAMA to account. They have allowed a Minister come in here tonight and not deal with a single one of the report's conclusions, except to misread its conclusion in respect of himself and those he describes as his officials. We have used very mild language to describe it as "procedurally inappropriate" that he should meet with one of two bidders.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is inferring wrongdoing.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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He did not meet with the other bidder, just with one of them. Subsequently, NAMA met with that bidder and so did Department of Finance officials.

If Deputy Alan Farrell could restrain himself, although I know it is difficult----

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Then you are actually inferring wrongdoing, which the report does not.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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It would be helpful for the democratic process to allow voices to be raised here, not loudly but out of concern and to raise the level of the debate. That would be helpful, Acting Chairman, if you could manage it with Deputy Farrell.

In respect of this report, it is a moderate, reasonable, rational report. I pay tribute to the Chair and every member of the Committee of Public Accounts who came in every week and dealt with this in the most reasonable way possible. It is unfortunate that, in the end, Fine Gael chose to do what they did in respect of the vote. However, it is appalling, unacceptable and shocking that the Minister for Finance would come in and make the accusations he has made about the members of the Committee of Public Accounts conjuring up something. If the Minister of State, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, who is in the Chamber, can stand over that, I do not know what we have come to. It is also a disgrace that the Minister, Deputy Noonan did not stay in the Chamber for the mere two hours of such an important debate, when it was agreed on a cross-party basis, which included his own party, that the more serious issues were laid out in this report and deserved a full inquiry.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the publication of the report and thank, in the first instance, the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy Fleming, the secretariat and all the members of the committee for their work, including those from Fine Gael. I commend the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General who produced a report that was evidence based, balanced and reasonable, and was an act of genuine public service.

What we saw since the Comptroller and Auditor General did his work was an unprecedented attack of such vicious nature on his office, on him personally and on his staff, by NAMA and by others. It was extraordinary. He and his staff have been vindicated and I believe the Committee of Public Accounts has been vindicated in the work that we have done.

However, that viciousness and all that was wrong about that attack has been matched in this Chamber today by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan. He should hang his head in shame, as he used the opportunity he had today, not to talk about the deficiencies in the loan sale or about the report itself, but to attack the Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts and, by extension, all of us who make up that committee. I want to put on the record that, while I have absolute, full support for and confidence in the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts and all its members, I have no confidence whatsoever in the Minister for Finance. He should resign, given the disgraceful contribution he made today. Furthermore, he did not even afford the respect that is due to all of the Members by staying for the full debate. It is appalling.

What is all this about? It is about the only loan sale in NAMA that we, as public representatives, went through and examined forensically. Look what unfolded and look at what we uncovered. If this case was an outlier or exception, we hit the bullseye. That simply could not be. This was shoddy work by NAMA. It was a compromised, corrupted process and a flawed sales process.

What did we learn as a committee? We learned that Project Eagle was conceived, not by the NAMA board nor by the NAMA executive, but by Tuvi Keinan of Brown Rudnick, Ian Coulter of Tughan's, and Mr. Frank Cushnehan, who was at the time a member of the Northern Ireland advisory committee, NIAC, of NAMA. When they met in 2012, they hatched a plan. What was the first thing they agreed? Fixer's fees of £15 million. That led to a reverse inquiry to NAMA by Pimco, with which they were working. Imagine a scenario in which a serving member of the Northern Ireland advisory committee of NAMA was meeting with these people, agreeing fixer's fees, and then meeting with DUP Ministers in the North as a serving member of the NIAC. It is extraordinary that all of it happened and that, to this day, neither NAMA nor the Minister for Finance can accept that it was a compromised process.

The Minister for Finance should resign because of his disgraceful performance here today. We need a commission of investigation. It needs to be established quickly and we need to see the terms of reference. We need to get under the bonnet, not of the value for money issues that we in the Committee of Public Accounts examined, but of the allegations of corruption which loom large and hang over this loan sale. They can only be dealt with, in my view, by a full commission of investigation. I have no confidence in the Fine Gael Deputies on the opposite bench or the Minister for Finance to do it, from what I have heard today.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I wish to start by thanking the Chairman and all the members of the Committee of Public Accounts for the considerable amount of work that they put into this report. It would be remiss of me not to say that at the outset. I believe that the vast majority of members did their very best to interpret the information that was presented to them in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. I would also like to commend him and his staff for a very comprehensive report on the matters before us.

Regardless of any other comments that have been made in the House thus far, the issue that I and my colleagues had with the two offending paragraphs came down to the basic principle of fairness, in terms of questioning the Minister specifically on the issues by which the members of the committee were offended. Now, it has emerged this evening that not only was it subject to a freedom of information request, of which we were aware, and that it had been reported on, but it was also subject to parliamentary questions. Thus, from my own perspective, I would say it was remiss of me not to ask the Minister very directly in respect of that meeting, and therefore that it was also remiss of the members of the Committee of Public Accounts.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy did not know about it and neither did we.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I would say on that basis we should have recalled the Minister-----

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy should admit the truth.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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----- to question him on the matter if we felt so inclined. We did not. Again, we were remiss in that regard as well. I regret entirely that, as Deputy Cassells said himself at the launch of the report, it was descending into a debate about Project Eagle and all the rest of it, when we had in fact covered the issues already. I agreed with him. However, the reason the Fine Gael members objected to the two matters that were included, and indeed, as Deputy Connolly rightly pointed out, the reason we suggested an alternative wording to which we would not have objected, was the very thing she inferred in her contribution, namely, wrongdoing. It was procedurally inappropriate - I think that is the term that was used in the report. It was not ethically, morally, or legally inappropriate. Was it perceptually inappropriate, or inappropriate from the media's perspective?

Perhaps one can spin it that way. However, the Minister has outlined his own rationale and I accept the Minister's rationale. I would imagine that if I was sitting in the seats opposite, even in my darkest moment, when I possibly did not want to agree with the Government of the day, I would actually say, "Here is a former Secretary of the Treasury of the United States who happens to be the chairman. I have no hand, act or part in the decision of the board of NAMA to do what they are doing. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate for me to actually meet with the Minister."

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Cerberus raised Project Eagle at the meeting.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Yes, and it is a matter of public record that it was dealt with at the meeting. What I would say, and it is not a slight on those who reported it, is that there are two reasons we are debating this matter in the first place: first, NAMA's bordering on aggressive response to the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, which I think was entirely inappropriate; and, second, the member of the Committee of Public Accounts, and I can assure the House it was not me, who leaked that draft report to The Sunday Business Post. That is what set us on the trajectory we are now on. I think that is regrettable. The member in question, whomever that was, chose to do so-----

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Noel Rock said it was you.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I will ignore Deputy MacSharry. The person, whomever that was, set up the entire response and it undermined the entire process. I am sure the Chairman will accept that. I raised that point at the launch and I firmly believe that it did undermine our entire process. It took the focus away from NAMA and one can guarantee, from what I have seen on RTE and in other places, that the actual focus is now not on NAMA, not on the potential loss to the taxpayer-----

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Thanks to the Minister's speech.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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No, I am talking about prior to this evening. The entire focus has not been on NAMA and the potential loss to the taxpayer; it has been on the Minister for Finance and his officials.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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As has Deputy Farrell's entire speech.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I think that, in itself, is inappropriate. I will leave it there and I thank the Chair for adhering to the wishes of the Ceann Comhairle in terms of affording members of the Committee of Public Accounts an opportunity to contribute this evening.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, for sitting through the debate and it is a shame his ministerial colleague did not. The Minister of State will remember from the banking inquiry that no party operated en bloc. We had many a row but it tended to be individuals who often clashed with each other - intra-party, indeed - and we still managed to get a report out at the end. At no time did the jersey come into the room as robust questioning continued from each member of the banking inquiry of their own Ministers, former Ministers, a Taoiseach and a former Taoiseach. I am sad to say that did not happen when we look at the outcome of this particular report.

In the context of NAMA, I want to make a point that, as far as I am concerned, the opening lines of Frank Daly at the initial testimony were that he had listened to the wishes of both Governments. Based on the evidence I have seen and on the testimony we have heard, I think that, on the balance of probability, the Irish side of this equation allowed itself to be duped by the Northern side of the equation. Notwithstanding any potential criminality on the other side, and there has been much reference to Mr. Cushnahan and these other issues that are under investigation, and I do not want to involve myself in any prejudice, the reality is the Northern Ireland entity decided, "We need to extract our industry from that NAMA process because, down there, they are throwing developers under a bus. It will ruin our economy." Therefore, they set about extracting the construction industry of the North of Ireland from the NAMA process, and they succeeded. Somebody may have made a lot of money out of that process, and that is the subject of investigations. I think that, inadvertently, we allowed that to happen down here. We allowed ourselves to do that in an effort to help the Northern Ireland taxpayer, except we did that to the detriment of the taxpayer on this side of the Border. That is the shambles which this particular transaction is.

As Deputy Cullinane pointed out, the fact this might be suggested as an outlier is incomprehensible because, if so, then we hit the bulls eye, as he said. That in itself demands a full and thorough investigation. In fact, if there were none of these controversies, I think the work of NAMA should demand a full oversight investigation in any event because of the amount of money and of State assets and people's assets involved, irrespective of the complexion of things being done incorrectly.

I was in the Seanad as finance spokesman for Fianna Fáil when the NAMA legislation was going through. At the end of it, because none of us knew for sure what the right moves were, although there are many experts with the benefit of hindsight, I remember saying that, to my mind, we should keep this under review and that there may need to be a NAMA (No. 2) Bill or a NAMA (No. 3) Bill, as there should have been. There should have been the level of oversight that clearly has not been there and I believe we are reaping the difficulties of that today. I think all transactions have to be looked at. We have now blindly sold off loan books as if the problem is solved, when there are no houses being built in the country because most developers, instead of being subservient to a NAMA process, are now subservient to a Lone Star, a Mars Capital or whoever, and they cannot get funds. I am not talking about the big guys we are reading about in the Sunday newspapers; I am talking about the guy who built 20 houses in Colooney, County Sligo, or 30 houses in Galway, or bits and pieces throughout the country. This is the real scandal.

I want to finish on the issue of "inappropriate" ministerial action. It gives me no pleasure to criticise the Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, for whom I have great personal time outside the ring and, indeed, for his work over the last number of years inside the ring. However, if John Snow is coming to see him and he happens to be the chairman of the company that is involved in buying something from the State for a very large amount of money the next day, potentially, then it should be reasonably obvious to any objective observer with a primary certificate, much less an intermediate or leaving certificate, that he is not coming to collect for the Red Cross. In fact, the minutes show he came specifically to talk about Project Eagle. While the Minister said, "You can go to talk to NAMA about that", I am sorry, but the complexion of that is grubby and it looks bad. The Minister, Deputy Noonan, is box office in Fine Gael and, sadly, the Fine Gael members have come en blocto say, "We are not playing any more. We are taking the football with us." I think that dilutes the great efforts the three Fine Gael members made in drawing up the report, or was it four? The fourth, or the alleged leaker in some quarters, was not at too many meetings, except key ones when we were kind of taking the old team position. As the Fine Gael members will have seen from the contributions of Members on this side of the House, I regularly clash with the Chair, which they will also have noted from meetings, and that is how the Committee of Public Accounts meetings should be.

Today is a sad day in that the Minister has used his position to rubbish what has been, since the foundation of the State, probably the best committee in terms of its cross-political party work and contribution. I think that is very unfortunate.

Although it is nothing to do with the Acting Chairman personally, a matter of the utmost urgency is that we need to get together as 158 Members to reschedule the business. My mandate is no different to that of Deputy Mattie McGrath, who has the benefit, like Kofi Annan, of standing up five times a day for ten minutes while I struggle to get two minutes once a week.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Hear, hear.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I did not set the agenda. The decision of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle was to give 40 minutes to the members of the committee and I stuck to that. I call Deputy Aylward.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Like other speakers, I want to say how disappointed and taken aback I am that the Minister, for whom I have good respect, would come in tonight and attack the Chairman of the PAC, who has done a fantastic job over the last eight months, given all the hearings we had and the hours and hours of questioning. To think that a senior Minister of the Government would come in and attack cross-party members of the PAC and personally attack the Chairman is not good enough. I am very disappointed with that.

I am very disappointed with the tribal attitude of the four Fine Gael Deputies opposite.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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We are not tribal.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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It is a legal interpretation.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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We had months of hearings and months of agreement and then, all of sudden, we have this over something that is factual. When we were questioning the Minister for Finance, we did not know he had, 48 hours before the deal was clinched, met with Cerberus, which was successful in the bid. We did not know that at the time. Now, they are trying to come in and say they knew about it.

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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We did not say that.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Michael McGrath knew about it.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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If they knew about it, why did they not declare it at the meeting when the Minister was in front of us for hours?

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Committee of Public Accounts is independent.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Why did the Minister himself not inform us of that?

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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We did not take a party position at the committee.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy knew. That is all I am saying.

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Committee of Public Accounts is independent.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Hear, hear.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Why was it not left open to ten, 12 or 15 bidders, like anyone else would have done? If one throws open a process, the more bidders there are, the more the merrier and the more money one gets from the sale. That is the way it goes. Why was all of it confined? It came down to just two bidders, Cerberus and Fortress. Why were there only two left in the end? I have a lot of questions. There are a lot of question marks, but we did not have the power as a committee to investigate. It takes a stronger power to do that. I believe a commission of inquiry should be set up now.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I have a lot more to say. Like Deputy Marc MacSharry, I believe we are being confined in the time limits when we have a lot more to say in the Chamber about a very important issue.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Unfortunately, the time allowed under the rules concludes at 8.13 p.m. I apologise to anybody who was not in a position to come back in. The time limit of two hours has been exceeded. I will now put the question-----

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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On a point of order, according to the rules, there is a right for the Minister of State to respond at the end of the debate. That was made clear to me.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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That is correct, provided the two hours were not exceeded. Are Members agreeable to allowing the Minister of State two minutes in which to respond?

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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On a point of order, I have not seen the motion. Has it been circulated?

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, it has.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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It was circulated on Tuesday.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Are Members agreeable to giving the Minister of State two minutes in which to conclude? Agreed.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Two minutes, not seven.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Members for their contributions. In response to Deputy Catherine Connolly, of course, I fully stand over the Minister for Finance's contribution in which he Minister addressed a number of the issues dealt with in the report of the Committee of Public Accounts, including, for example, the criticisms made of NAMA and the commission of investigation. I will come back to that issue. The Minister has a right to defend his good name and, of course, he does. The report was selectively leaked by someone to the media. It seems from the type and manner of that leaking that it was done to damage the Minister's reputation. He has a right to defend himself against it. He was not afforded due process in the way the Committee of Public Accounts conducted its business. As the committee has special powers and responsibilities in the Oireachtas, it also has a responsibility to its witnesses to follow due process. That responsibility was not met in this regard. Deputy Marc MacSharry alluded to that point. He also talked about the meetings looking bad. He said they had looked grubby and that that had been the perception. Of course, everything around the meeting was published. The very fact that there was a perception or a misperception about what the meeting had been about or what might have gone on is exactly why the Minister should have been afforded the ability and an opportunity to respond to questions at the committee, as appropriate. He was not afforded that responsibility.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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His defence is included in the report. It is his full letter, word for word.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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He was not questioned at all-----

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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His speech tonight was no different from what was included in the report.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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He was not given the opportunity to answer questions after parts of the report had been selectively leaked to the media in what seemed to be an attempt to damage his reputation and good name.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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By one of the Government's own.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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Suspect No. 1, as I am sure the Minister of State knows.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In the previous Dáil we saw the Committee of Public Accounts risk bringing the reputation of the committee, the House and the practice of politics into disrepute. It has a special responsibility which we have to treat very carefully.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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When did we do that?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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On this occasion, it has not followed due process in affording the Minister the opportunity to respond to the questions it may have.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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Look at his letter.

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Let the Minister of State finish. He has 30 seconds in which to conclude.

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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What does the Minister for Finance want? He read it all today. He also abused the Chairman of the committee.

Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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He was before the committee for six hours and never gave-----

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Will Members, please, respect each other and let the Minister of State conclude?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There is very little I can say in 30 seconds. In response to Deputies who talked about the need to establish a commission of investigation, as the Minister for Finance said in his opening remarks, before the Government can make a decision on how to proceed, it will be important to hear the views of Members on a number of issues surrounding the establishment of a commission of investigation. What would be its focus in the light of the extensive hearings already completed by the Committee of Public Accounts?

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Fudge.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Where could a commission add value beyond the work already completed by the committee?

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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Clearly, nothing that would implicate the Government.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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What more would a commission be able to achieve-----

Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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The truth.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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-----given that it would be subject to restrictions owing to ongoing criminal and other investigations and the fact that many potential witnesses and evidence are located outside the jurisdiction?

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Taoiseach agreed to all of this.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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The Taoiseach has already agreed.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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How much might the commission cost?

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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I think the 30 seconds are up.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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They are well up.