Seanad debates

Monday, 9 November 2009

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Second Stage

 

1:00 pm

Photo of Eoghan HarrisEoghan Harris (Independent)

I am not going to avoid the mechanics, but I want to remind the Seanad that NAMA is as much a political vehicle and part of the political economy as it is an economic vehicle. I agree with Senators MacSharry and Ross in their tributes to the Minister. As I stated in the House two years ago, we were at the beginning of a long war. In this war one needs a leader who is prepared to be seen at the hardest point of the battle. The Minister has not been hanging back. He has led from the front, which is the first requirement before any battle plans are made. One needs someone with the courage to lead, which is the case with the Minister.

The next question is whether the vehicle, the tank, so to speak, that the Minister has devised to win this war, is fit for purpose. All one can say to that from a political point of view is that we do not know. Like all human projects that project into the future, they are contingent. Everything human is fundamentally flawed. Everyone who says that he or she has a panacea for the future or that this or that will work is not telling the truth. All we can do is to prepare a special purpose vehicle to carry us into the future and prepare as well as we can for the journey. That is what the Seanad is doing today and what the Dáil has been doing, namely trying to get that vehicle up to standard to make it fit for purpose to carry us into the future, but we do not know and we cannot give any guarantees about where it will arrive. That is in the nature of the human project. We should modify our expectations and stop talking as if there were some perfect human project. NAMA is as good as the men and women who will run it.

NAMA is a necessity. In terms of its philosophical foundation it seems to me that NAMA is a creature of need in a field of contingency. That is to say, we need it but everything that will happen to it is contingent. I support NAMA, not because it was the only possible way of dealing with the crisis but because it is now the only possible way of dealing with the crisis. It seems to me that like marriage, one commits oneself to it, and that one knows there will be messy parts to it, but by and large one hopes it will work. One does one's best and one does that honestly.

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