Michael D'Arcy (Fine Gael)

At the outset I take the opportunity to withdraw some of my perhaps excessively harsh criticism of Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell on the last occasion we had a debate. I was disappointed with her contribution and considered it to be all style over substance. I was harsh because I consider Senator O'Donnell to be somebody of substance.

I reviewed the speech I gave in the other Chamber during the debate on the National Asset Management Agency Bill. All of the issues raised then are on the record. I had a real concern about the price for property on the basis of the sharp practice that took place in the development, auctioneering and construction sectors. This should not be dealt with through a Bill of this type for just one or two institutions. It is crucial that the property services regulatory authority is established as quickly as possible so that we have no more sharp practice. The method by which sharp practice is concluded is that every price on every sale goes up within a period of time as the Minister mentioned in his speech. Those prices will be going up, backdated to 1 January 2010. That will be of real benefit to every future purchaser of a property from now on.

I welcome the €2 billion that NAMA will invest in the construction sector. Effectively it is an injection of cash following its sale of property abroad. I am not sure if that will be replaced by other funds. On a number of occasions I have said in this House that the 100,000 construction workers who are unemployed need to be given an opportunity to get back into work. I am not talking about building unsustainable developments, but building residential units, sustainable energy infrastructure or other crucial structures. I welcome that wholeheartedly.

I have a real concern about the NAMA scheme with the effective 20% underwriting of a property that may fall further in value. The best method of regulating the market is by the market itself. If NAMA put enough of the appropriate properties on the market, starting off effectively in Dublin city centre, there would be a wave effect from there throughout the country. It will take some time for that wave to travel throughout the State but it will happen in time. In the past two months property prices in Dublin city have not only stabilised, but have increased. While we do not yet know if this is a trend, we will find out in the coming months.

Based on my experience on the Committee of Public Accounts, I do not believe there is any Government organisation as professional, capable and authoritative in the job it does than the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Anybody who has had any dealing with those in that office will agree that they are the best at what they do. The Comptroller and Auditor General has a full-time team in NAMA scrutinising everything that is being done. I would welcome an expansion of its role, with greater interaction between the Comptroller and Auditor General and us, perhaps through the committees or perhaps via information flow from the Minister.

The point about commercially sensitive information cannot be ignored. We cannot have two institutions, one a major property company and the other a bank, having that information in public and none of their competitors making that information public. That simply would not work because in time it would cost the taxpayers' money. Nobody in this Chamber or the other one wants to see this costing the taxpayers more than it should. We are all satisfied that it is costing more than enough.

The anger and downright fury is because citizens do not believe the people who caused the crash have been held to account yet. I am hopeful that the various agencies, the DPP, the Garda and the Office of Corporate Enforcement will do their jobs well. Nobody should influence any potential case. Nobody wants a repeat of what happened when Ms Mary Harney spoke about the former Taoiseach, the late Charles Haughey. The New York Times once asked, "Can one bank bring down a nation?" While we do not know the answer to that question yet, we know it went damn close to it. It is crucial that the bankers and developers who caused the crash along with those in the Government and the State agencies who did not do their job well enough should be called to account.