Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

159. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will confirm that notwithstanding the additional contingent debt liability to the State from the existence of outstanding the National Assets Management Agency bonds that shall be held by the Central Bank of Ireland as consideration for NAMA’s acquisition for the net debt owed by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation to the Central Bank of Ireland, there is a clear economic incentive for the Irish Exchequer not to sell the IBRC assets now whose proceeds will redeem those bonds, but rather to retain the assets in NAMA and allow the Central Bank of Ireland to continue to make an annual sizeable profit on the issued NAMA bonds which can be returned to the Exchequer and help to reduce the annual deficit or contribute to capital investment job creation schemes; if he has calculated the annual profit the Central Bank of Ireland could accrue from the retention of the NAMA bonds issued to it as consideration for the IBRC debt on annual basis if no IBRC assets were sold and all the IBRC assets transferred to NAMA; if he will provide an estimate of this figure on the expected NAMA bond interest rate and the ECB open market rate remaining at 0.75% for the next two years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19874/13]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

As owner of the NAMA Bonds in question this is a matter for the Central Bank of Ireland. The Central Bank of Ireland advises that they do not comment on individual investment holdings, as NAMA bonds are managed together with the Bank’s other investment assets, any positive investment return at year end will be the product of the Bank’s investment portfolio in aggregate and not individual investments in isolation.

As regards NAMA’s management of any assets it acquires from IBRC, NAMA is obliged under Section 10 of the NAMA Act to obtain the best achievable financial return to the State on the assets acquired by it and, in that context, the profitability of the Central Bank of Irelands is not a relevant consideration.