Eugene Regan (Fine Gael)

The Seanad has come in for a lot of criticism lately, some of it fair and some of it unfair. In my experience, this House provides an excellent forum for exposing corruption and incompetence in Government, for scrutinising legislation and raising issues of public concern and public interest. It has stood the test of time and Irish democracy would be poorer if the Seanad was not to continue its work.

I support Senator Fitzgerald's call for a debate on the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA. The Government has been receiving, at a cost of €2 million, professional advice on the guarantee scheme and the recapitalisation of the banks. Questions have been raised over the establishment of NAMA and how the Government thinks it will work but there have been no answers. We got an answer from Dr. Michael Somers, however, when he said last week that this was new territory and he was unaware of how it would be set up and operated or how it would interact with the National Treasury Management Agency. This is an indictment of the Minister for Finance.

We now find a notice, published by the NTMA and seeking a tender, was carried in the EU Journal. It was published on 12 May and the deadline for submissions was 25 May, a very brief period. The tender is for services on the direction of the Minister for Finance, stating that the NTMA wishes to retain banking and financial advisory services to assist in its preparatory work in the establishment of NAMA, including an analysis of eligible assets, development of an appropriate valuation methodology for the assets, associated securities and associated derivatives, formulating the parameters of and execution methodology for a viability review, and the suitability of the proposed solutions in an Irish context.

I am only referring to this because Dr. Michael Somers has admitted the NTMA does not know how to go about this. It is seeking advice and it appears to me that the Minister for Finance does not know because he has subcontracted it to the NTMA. There should be a debate in this House where the Minister for Finance can explain what is going on.