Eoghan Harris (Independent)

I welcome the fact that light is being thrown on the realities of the banks during this debate. It is good that we are now facing the fact that NAMA is more of a process than a product. It is tedious and nit-picking - I have always personally disliked it - when people like Senator Regan ask whether we are going to make a profit. I do not know how we could pin anything like that down in the case of any human enterprise. The Minister is entitled to say we hope and intend to make a profit, that we have made the calculations as well as human beings can do but that we are still at the mercy of history, time and circumstance. I do not understand such platonic thinking; I just do not get it. This is a process, not a product. It is a process in history and the Minister is doing the best he can. We should be more concerned about the readiness of Ministers to admit that this is contingent and that they can make mistakes. I am glad the Minister has said the Government will review the position continually. Senator Donohoe has emphasised the need to review continually, re-examine and reopen and adopt new methods.

I am not a lawyer and might need assistance from Senators Regan and White or anybody else on the following query. Enormous expertise will be built from the Bill in the assessment of loans and creditworthiness. We will need to access that expertise at some stage if we are to deal with the mountain of personal debt and negative equity problems, as Senator Fitzgerald pointed. I cannot see how we will get away from a position where a State agency will have to be set up to assess the situation of some 300,000 people in negative equity and solve their difficulties. Otherwise, the State will not be able to function as a society.