Results 5,201-5,220 of 34,779 for speaker:Seán Fleming
- 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.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)
Seán Fleming: Project Eagle was the sale of the Northern Ireland loan book.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)
Seán Fleming: This is probably the biggest and most contentious aspect of the correspondence, so we will spend a bit of time on it.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)
Seán Fleming: For the book value.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)
Seán Fleming: I am listening to everything that is being said and my observation is there is an interesting theme running through the response, not on NAMA but on several other issues. The sponsoring Department had to be aware of this from its ongoing contact with NAMA. It is impossible that the Department was not aware of this. I do not blame NAMA but it was impossible for the Department not to have...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)
Seán Fleming: This a very recent report, written only in the past fortnight. It is current. Local authorities had rejected 40% of the 7,000 residential units and sites suitable for housing offered to them by NAMA. The committee suggested that if they are still available to NAMA they be re-offered to the local authorities but NAMA responded that none of the units are now available. I accept we were late...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (20 Jun 2019)
Seán Fleming: Is the Deputy seeking a list of the original rejections?