Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)

The NAMA Act makes the agency accountable in a number of ways. Its annual report and financial statements are laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. I am advised by NAMA that its annual report and financial statements will be published within the next two months and will be a full and detailed account of its 2011 operations and results. The chairman and chief executive are also accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts, PAC, and other Oireachtas committees and give evidence to those committees whenever required to do so.

Furthermore, there have been numerous parliamentary questions addressed to the Minister on NAMA and the associated replies are on the Oireachtas record. In addition to its annual accounts, however, NAMA is also required to submit to the Minister for Finance an annual statement by 30 September each year setting out its proposed objectives for the following financial year, the scope of activities to be undertaken, its strategies and policies and its proposed use of resources.

NAMA is also required to report to the Minister on a quarterly basis, giving detailed information about its loans, its financing arrangements and its income and expenditure. These reports, which also include other information specified under section 55 of the NAMA Act, track progress on a quarterly basis. NAMA's accounts are comprehensively audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General, who has a permanent team of officers based in the agency with unrestricted access to all its records and files. If there is concern about a specific aspect of NAMA's work, it is within the power of the Comptroller and Auditor General to scrutinise any aspect of it. The Comptroller and Auditor General has already produced two special reports on NAMA's activities and they have been broadly positive in their assessment of how NAMA is managing its complex business. The process of loan valuation and acquisition is also audited by the European Commission.

I am very supportive of NAMA's efforts and I think it has at all times acted in the public interest and within the law. The Government will not impose restrictions on NAMA that would place it at a competitive disadvantage in the market place by preventing it from acting, in every instance, in the most commercial manner and hindering its ability to get every last cent back for the taxpayer.

As I have said to Senator Daly on several times, he would neither put up nor shut up.