Pearse Doherty calls for a full public report into NAMA as the agency is wound up, arguing the state took on €74.4bn of loans and recovered just €37bn while the market has since recovered. He accuses government policy of enabling sales to vulture funds and says taxpayers have effectively lost around €30bn.
Key figures and demand for transparency: Pearse Doherty opens by insisting a final report be published now NAMA is being dissolved, so the public can see how an agency with €74.4bn in transferred loans ended up recovering less than half in book value. He cites the Comptroller and Auditor General and presses ministers for answers on missed targets and recoveries.
Housing impact and missed commitments: Doherty highlights land sales that removed housing-ready plots during a housing emergency and points to CNAG findings that only a fraction of expected homes were built. He emphasises that NAMA missed its own social housing and land-disposal targets by large margins.
Policy choices and political responsibility: He contends that policy decisions, including former minister Michael Noonan's approach to invite vulture funds, drove early disposals from 2013 onwards. Doherty argues the NAMA Act did not require such sales and says prolonged asset management could have returned billions more to the taxpayer.
What he seeks and the consequences: Doherty demands the full truth be disclosed, asking why the government resists a definitive report if it believes NAMA was a success. He frames the end of NAMA as the moment to account for roughly €30bn that he says has effectively been lost from public coffers.
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I'm not surprised at what you've read out because I don't think you would like the public to see the truth in relation to what happened in terms of NAMA and that's all we're asking for here. We're asking for the report to be carried out as NAMA has been wound up and let the public see everything, warts and all, of how an agency took on 74 billion euro of loans and ended up recovering less than half of that. That's the reality. They recovered 37 billion out of 74.4 billion euro in book value on the loans and that's happened at a time when the market has fully recovered. I'm not naive enough to think that there wasn't parcels of that portfolio on land, for example, that was way overvalued. I know they existed in places in Donegal and elsewhere, but to recover less than half of the book value in a market that is now fully recovered is problematic and it isn't just that. As I said, they sold land that was available for housing development in the middle of a housing emergency that only has got one and four houses built in it, according the CNAG. The social housing targets that it had itself, they missed it by nearly 50% off by a country mile and you continue to parrot the idea that NAMA has been a success story. It has not been a success story and that's the reality of it and I know Deputy Timmons came in here to protect the blushes of the government and stating that the CEO of NAMA made this comment and that comment and of course the CEO of NAMA would say that because they are the people who did the fire sale in relation to these loans. What I was quoting was the Comptroller and Auditor General who stated that NAMA has failed to meet its own targets on social housing, on land disposal and the reality is if I turned around to anybody and said here's 70 billion of loans, give me whatever 30 billion for it, the loans will recover in 10-12 years and you tell me that you've only still recovered half the value of it. That's a failure folks. That is a failure. The raison d'etre of NAMA, you can argue and you did argue at length there in relation to that we're supposed to hold on in the long term and all the rest, that was a policy decision that happened after the fact. That was Michael Noonan's decision but by the way, that was what happened there. Michael Noonan wanted to find a floor on the property market, he invited in the vulture funds here and they wreaked havoc with people's lives and that's what he did and that's why NAMA started to sell their properties from 2013 on. The actual act is very clear in relation to what NAMA is supposed to do. The holding and managing and realising of those assets by the agency, the collection of interest in capital and the taking of the collateral where necessary into perversion of funds where appropriate. The taking of that by the agency of all steps necessary or expedient to protect, enhance and better realise the value or assets transferred to it. At no stage in the NAMA Act of 2009 did it say that you need to start selling properties to satisfy an agenda of Fine Gael which was about inviting and rolling out the red carpet for the vulture funds. That's what happened here and what we are demanding here is that the public be given the full truth, they deserve the truth because 30 billion euro of their money has gone up in smoke and as we bring an end to this sorry staga and dissolving NAMA, it brings the curtain down on that but it also makes it very clear that the commitments that were made at the time that all loans will be pursued, all money will be paid has not been realised. So I would ask you a simple question Minister, why do you fear a report that if you're so convinced that NAMA has done a great job, has met its targets, surely that report will just be a glowing reference to your government's handling of this and previous government's handling of NAMA and indeed the handling by NAMA themselves of this issue or is it the case that you fear this report because you know it will show very clearly that if this agency had managed the assets for a longer period in time that billions of euro more would be in the coffers of the Irish taxpayer instead of being actually gone up in smoke.
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