Results 5,001-5,020 of 34,585 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: We are joined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, who is a permanent witness to the committee. He is joined today by Ms Josephine Mooney, deputy director of audit at the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Apologies have been received from Deputy Deering. I have not had an opportunity to review the minutes of the previous two meetings. I propose we...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: We will put it up on the screen.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: There is quite a bit to the report. I have gone through the report and I do not expect the committee to go through all 20 pages in public session. I will highlight the key points and if members would like clarification about certain matters, that can be done subsequently. I would like to clear this today. There are one or two points that invite follow up. We received this 20-page...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: I might ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to help as he did a special report on the matter.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: The issue is essentially that there is no connection between the purchaser of the loan-----

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: I do not think people fully appreciated the need for a section 172 declaration when the legislation was drafted. It exists on the sale of assets but does not exist, and was not contemplated, for loans. NAMA has put in place some internal structures to try to capture some of that, even thought it is not specifically covered in the legislation. On Project Nantes, we received correspondence...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: The advice of the Office of the Parliamentary Legal Advisers was that a director of the same company might not necessarily be a connected person. It was stated a director of a similar company might have been involved in the purchase of a loan. However, under the legislation, a director may be and, in many cases, is a connected person, but that is not always the case. We are getting into...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: The Deputy is correct in that regard. It is strange that we are almost at the end of the NAMA story and 95% of the issue has been dealt with, but this issue is only coming out now. When the legislation was being drafted, it was decided to establish the National Asset Management Agency. I know that the asset was the loan, but people were thinking of properties and the sale thereof when the...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: They were not captured.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: Essentially, Mr. McCarthy is saying that at the end of NAMA, very little of the realisation of the loans was by sale of property assets by NAMA.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: The section was set up to cover this, but, in fact, NAMA made the debtor or receiver do the selling and it was always one step removed from NAMA. It carried out all the loan sales directly.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: Very little of NAMA's activity was covered by section 172 which we all thought originally was the belt and braces to protect the taxpayer. The Oireachtas drafted the legislation, not NAMA. It is amazing that we are almost at the end of the game and now realising that, in practice, this main safeguard for the taxpayer did not apply to any great extent during the lifetime of NAMA.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: To replicate it.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: Given the limitations.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: It was working out the legislation, saw its limitations and tried to put its own arrangements in place to counterbalance the gaps in the legislation.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: That meant that most section 172 agreements were signed at one step removed from NAMA by sellers and potential purchasers but not the rest of------

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: Non-statutory.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: Or what was understood to be the process.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)

Seán Fleming: Essentially, the Deputy is saying that when legislation is passed, there should be a review after a certain time to see whether amendments are required.