Phil Prendergast (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Carey. We have never had such important legislation in the House in my short time here.

One can ask whether there is any reason to be suspicious of the term "long-term economic value". Why do we not refer to long-term market value, which would be a more appropriate term? Does "economic" imply some other value is involved in assessing the value of property? The reason I am being so particular about this point is that there is a fundamental lack of trust in the Government's sensibility. I refer to both parties, the Green Party and Fianna Fáil. We recently saw the Green Party's leadership jump through hoops to deceive its own members over NAMA. It is plain not just to outside observers but to many of those in the party too that the goal of this highly choreographed exercise was to stick rigidly to the position the party adopted in the middle of the 2007 general election campaign, namely, to get into government. It did not matter at the time that this meant supporting a party whose interests have always been umbilically tied to the interests of developers and land owners.

No party has a history like Fianna Fáil when it comes to bad planning. Be it at county council level or Government level, the willingness of Fianna Fáil to ignore good practice in planning has been the party's outstanding characteristic in the past 30 years. I realise that is a strong statement. The Green Party was willing to enter into government with Fianna Fáil despite the fact that its very raison d'être is to oppose such appalling environmental policy. I was amazed at that, given that the Green Party's policies were to promote good, sustainable, long-term planning for the good of the country. That led the Green Party to support a party whose addiction to developer-led planning can only be described as pathological. Whether it is the tribunals, or as we have seen not so long ago in County Kerry, in the courts, it is invariably Fianna Fáil members who are guilty of disregarding the public interest and instead favouring developers and landowners who have bankrolled the party's election campaigns. Those are facts, not opinions or conjecture. The court records and tribunal reports are there to prove it. That has been at an enormous financial cost to this country.

The gross inefficiency and high cost of public transport, policing, health and education were caused by Fianna Fáil's preference for allowing development anywhere that could turn a buck for the wealthy interests that caused our economic meltdown. Therefore, when the Minister uses such a nebulous term as "long-term economic value", one cannot help but be suspicious that this is just another deception being played upon the people because that term looks like a get-out clause for the Government, which can move the goalposts yet again at some future date. The Green Party has joined that team. I ask the Minister to state clearly that the monetary value of loans will be based exclusively on their market value, albeit one that will be massaged upwards for the benefit of the banks and not some other, as yet unstated criteria.

The late introduction of the special purpose vehicle, the majority of which will be owned by private interests, is just the latest example of the deceit that lies behind NAMA. It is inconceivable that the Government, which got the go-ahead for NAMA from the EU authorities in the summer, could only have decided on this particular SPV model a few weeks ago. The Government's actions have given even the most open-minded person reasons for deep suspicion. If we consider the communication tactics of the Government, we will find further reason for suspicion. We were told that the setting up of NAMA is similar to what happened in Sweden in the early 1990s. The Swedish Minister, Bo Lundgren, whom the Government cited, did not agree that NAMA is the right approach for us. He is not the only one who does not agree with the Government. The two leading economists in the world, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, also disagree with the Government. Recently, Peter Matthews added his concerns on the Bill.

NAMA will assume the loans from the banks and pay a value premium. That process is confidential so the premium is likely to be in the form of a cash gift to banks, that is, non-repayable, unlike recapitalisation, which means one has the influence and the profit when one sells the bank shares back to the market. Will the Minister indicate whether NAMA is precluded from loan forgiveness? Could that be extended by way of passing on the discount on the loan value from banks to developers in whole, or in part? NAMA will want the loans honoured or else liquidation will be sought, which means a sell-off of the company's assets. Who will lend the money to buy these assets? Will it be the banks with free money from the taxpayer? Who will buy those assets? Will it be people experienced in development, namely, developers? Will that mean developers could buy back their own assets with borrowed money at a cheaper rate than the original payment due on the loan? Could they engage in information exchange and buy back each others assets? Those are legitimate questions on which the Minister needs to provide clarity, as there is much confusion on those matters. There has been such an amount of debate that sometimes the finer detail gets lost. There is no clarity on the issues that arise. There is confusion even among members of the Fianna Fáil Party on NAMA.

The Minister only ever talks in terms of a higher value of the assets, but if NAMA sells off all the property and assets onto the market that could create a glut. According to the law of supply and demand that could mean lower prices would prevail. In that case, the long-term economic value could be lower than the current value. That is what I expect would happen as it would make sense. However, I do not know because I am not an economist. Will the Minister point to any provisions in the legislation that would prevent developers from picking off the best assets under the control of NAMA? What is likely to happen is that many developers who should be bankrupt by now are not going to go bankrupt and they will be fully within their rights to purchase assets at market rates having sold them with the future economic value premium being paid for by the taxpayer.

I accept I have raised contentious issues. I do so advisedly. Those issues have not been satisfactorily addressed. I thank the Minister of State for listening. I thank those involved in preparing the briefing information made available to us. I await the Minister's replies with interest.