Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 161: To ask the Minister for Finance his views on a matter (details supplied) regarding the National Asset Management Agency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15621/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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For a variety of reasons, including political and commercial, it is important that exchanges between governments and reporting by diplomatic missions take place in confidence. In conjunction with my colleagues in Cabinet, I do not believe it to be good practice to comment on matters contained in leaked documents which have no official standing. In the most general terms, however, it is a fact that any and all early estimates of NAMA discounts were based on a top-down aggregate estimate of the potential discount that the institutions would face and it was always made clear that the actual valuations would be determined on a loan-by-loan basis as the transfers occurred. I can confirm that the information given to the Dáil by the then Minister for Finance was based on the information and advice available to the Department of Finance at the time.