Did the Government Mislead us Over NAMA?

As we approach the end of this Oireachtas term, it is important to reflect on one of the most important decisions made in the House, reluctantly, when the NAMA legislation was passed. 

I refer to a statement by a former director of Anlo Irish Bank, Mr. Frank Daly, now chairman of NAMA, that the banks had misled NAMA.  Media comment, in particular, has adopted this line uncritically.  It is a national pastime to bash the banks, but we have to look at the issue more closely.

The establishment of NAMA was announced in the supplementary Budget Statement in April last year.  The draft business plan, according to which we were to make a phenomenal €4.8 billion in profit, was published on 13 October.  Having nationalised Anglo Irish Bank in December 2009 and appointed public interest directors to all of the banks, there was adequate time for the Government to find out the true story.  It is an abdication of responsibility to suggest it all comes down to the information the Government received from the banks.  NAMA and the Government have a multitude of advisers to check these matters for them.

Did the Government not present, intentionally, a rosy and misleading picture on the profitability of NAMA in order to get the legislation over the line?  It either did engage in a due diligence process on the banks - it had the capacity to do so - and hid the figures from us, or it did not, which would amount to a dereliction of duty.  That is what is unpatriotic about the Government - it misled the Houses Of The Oireachtas and the public on one of the most enormous financial undertakings ever made by the State.