Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)

I thank all my colleagues for their input and the Minister for his reply. I am not happy that the Government has come up with a number of reasons that, in themselves, are at variance with some of the facts. As I and colleagues have outlined, NAMA proposed a website six months after I proposed it but it is limiting its one only to properties of which it has taken title control. That represents a very small fraction of all the loans it has given out. My proposal is that NAMA would put all properties it is allowing to be sold onto the website.

What we must understand here is that section 35 of the NAMA Act asked the organisation to set up a system whereby all its assets would be sold, whether they were property or loans. That was the legislation; it was our intent. Within that, NAMA had to come up with its process within three months. That process is the same as that for selling a State asset, which must be done by tender or public auction. The reason I asked the Attorney General to come to the House is that I cannot understand why NAMA is not selling the property and the loans under its control as laid down by the NAMA Act and as signed off by the Minister, Deputy Noonan's colleague. Why is NAMA not doing that? We have legal opinion on both my side and NAMA.s side. It claims it does not have to do this while my legal opinion states it should do so but is simply not doing so.

The result is a lack of transparency. I do not accept the point about commercial sensitivity. Senator Clune would be aware of this from her own constituency. How is it in the best interest of the taxpayer that 450 acres of land in Cork was sold without anybody knowing about it? How is that in the interests of anybody? It is only in the interest of the people who bought it quietly from the bank, with the agreement of NAMA. Colleagues have pointed out that I have not produced the evidence. I have produced evidence, namely, the property on Baker St. The company which bought it said that in one year the value had gone up 54% from 2010 to 2011. That can only suggest that it was undersold in the first place. Commercial property in Baker St., London, did not increase by 54% in one calendar year. What also happened was that the people who had taken out a loan of €49 million were part of the profit share on the sale. It is stated by British Land which is now in control of that property that NAMA and Bank of Ireland agreed to all this. The Irish taxpayer has suffered a loss of €28.2 million on one sale.

I am talking about simple transparency. Like Senator Coghlan, I am an auctioneer. If every property for sale by banks which had been given a loan by NAMA was put on a website there could be no doubt. Would the taxpayer lose if there was a website? The taxpayer is losing already to the tune of €28 million on one sale. I will give the evidence to anyone. Let no one come into the House and say "Mark Daly did not produce evidence". I am presenting the evidence. Senator Coghlan is welcome to talk to the individual or to anyone. When I asked about this at Bank of Ireland it referred to commercial sensitivity. However, the NAMA Act says that every property---