Lorraine Higgins (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank him for taking this matter on the Adjournment. It was reported in the national media in recent weeks that a property sold at Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin for €7.5 million in 2012 was flipped, so to speak, just over a year later for €18 million by NAMA, representing a 136% increase in price. This is astounding and not reflective of the commercial property price increases that have been recorded in the past year or two.
I am not from a corporate background but when all the forecasts suggested the Irish property market would improve, when there was a limited amount of this type of property for sale in the Dublin docklands region and with so many international investors looking to invest here, the question arises as to whether the property in question was sold under value in the first instance. If this is the case, why are we allowing corporate raiders, to come to this country, asset-strip and sell on property, making a huge profit at the expense of Irish taxpayers?
What is worrying is that I read in the Financial Timesrecently how a pension fund in the United States alleges that Blackstone, a company with which NAMA does a lot of business, although not in this case, entered into an agreement with another private equity company for the purpose of ensuring they would not compete with one another for the purchase of property, thus keeping the prices of properties down. They had set up a special purpose vehicle for that purpose. This is very much a feature of this corporate world and it is part of proceedings in the United States of America.
At a time when a report compiled for the agency by investment bank UBS reveals that "losses ranging from €1.4bn to €2.6bn would arise if an accelerated liquidation or fire sale" took place, what measures does NAMA have in place for dealing with those types of risk as they arise in order that the Irish taxpayer can be assured of maximum bang for their buck when it comes to selling off property?