Larry Butler (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State. He and the Minister for Finance probably know more about NAMA than anyone in the country who has been dealing with this over the last 12 months. There has been a great deal of misinformation from people who did not understand the workings of NAMA, and how it would operate. There are still quite a number of people who do not understand NAMA and it is the job of this House to try and get the message across.

The Minister for Finance has done an extremely fine job in insuring that NAMA is understood perfectly in light of the business plan laid out for us to discuss. Jones Lang LaSalle, in an article in The Irish Times yesterday, said the property market has more or less bottomed out now, which is good news. This is an international company which has its finger on the pulse in terms of reviewing property markets on a worldwide scale, and I value its opinion very much. When we originally proposed NAMA to ensure that the banking sector was put back on a solid basis for lending, everybody assumed the banks would not lend. I believe that is a wrong assumption. The banks at the moment cannot lend as they are undercapitalised. This is where the business plan comes into play with the recapitalisation of the €54 billion which will go back into bonds and back into the banks again. That will put the banks on a very solid financial footing to ensure they meet the demands for coming years and the future of the economy.