Sinn Féin will not oppose this legislation progressing to the next Stage. We support the orderly winding down of NAMA and the completion of the IBRC process, but we have serious concerns about accountability, governance and the extraordinary salaries that will be paid, which are utterly out of kilter with public sector norms. Sinn Féin will bring forward amendments on Committee Stage to address those concerns. Before we close the book on NAMA as a State, a people and a Government, serious questions have to be answered. Under the Government's plans, the CEO of NAMA, Brendan McDonagh, appears set to transfer into the NTMA on the same terms and conditions he currently enjoys. We are talking about a salary of approximately €430,000 per year. That places him among the top 0.1% of earners in the State. It is more than €100,000 higher than the salary of the Governor of the Central Bank. Last year, the Government even attempted to appoint this same individual as a so-called housing tsar, effectively sidelining the Minister for housing, before backing down under sustained pressure from this side of the House. Therefore, the public is entitled to ask whether there are any lengths to which the Government will not go to protect Mr. McDonagh's extraordinary salary package. The Government continues to bend over backwards to protect the NAMA CEO's salary of €430,000 per year. Last year-----

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This is an extraordinary salary that is part and parcel of the winding up of a State agency.

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I will continue with that noted. Last year, the so-called housing tsar plan collapsed under pressure and now the Government wants to fold an individual back into the NTMA while preserving the same extraordinary pay package. Contrast that for a moment with the National Ambulance Service workers who have been forced onto picket lines simply to secure modest improvements in pay and conditions and address chronic recruitment and retention problems. Front-line workers are told there is no flexibility, no urgency and no money, but when it comes to protecting a senior executive associated with NAMA, or any senior executive, suddenly the State can move mountains and seems very motivated to do so. We also need to be honest about what NAMA represents and the political choices that followed the collapse. The Government will try to present this Bill as the final chapter in a successful rescue story, but the story of NAMA is inseparable from one of the darkest economic periods in the history of the State. Following the crash in 2008, the State undertook extraordinary measures to stabilise the banking system. Banks were recapitalised at massive public expense. Blanket guarantees were introduced and NAMA was established to acquire toxic property loans from the banks. The stated purpose of NAMA was to protect the interests of the State and manage distressed assets in a way that maximised public value, but when we examine the legacy of NAMA honestly, serious questions remain. NAMA paid €31.8 billion to acquire loans with a face value of more than €74 billion. The banks incurred losses of more than €42 billion on those loans, losses that were ultimately borne by ordinary people through austerity, including cuts to services, higher taxes, emigration and lost opportunity. The Comptroller and Auditor General estimated in 2022 that the net cost of the bank stabilisation measures amounted to €45.7 billion. Nowhere is the failure of the post-crash political and economic model clearer than in housing. While NAMA was established to manage distressed property assets, what followed was the large-scale transfer of Irish property into the hands of international vulture funds and institutional landlords. Entire developments of apartment blocks and offices and land banks were sold off at rock bottom prices. These were assets that could have been strategically retained for long-term public housing, instead of becoming investment vehicles for global finance. The legacy of NAMA and austerity and the economic ideology of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are still visible across every community in the State. Following the crash, Irish property and land banks were sold at rock bottom prices to vulture funds and institutional investors while ordinary people carried the burden. Today we are living with the consequences, including record numbers of evictions, the highest homelessness figures in the history of the State, eye-watering rents, families trapped in insecure accommodation, workers commuting impossible distances and an entire generation effectively locked out of home ownership. Coincidentally, the same generation in many cases bore the brunt of the economic crisis and the decisions taken by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in its aftermath. When we examine the financial returns achieved by NAMA, the picture becomes even harder to justify. NAMA was handed billions in property assets at the absolute bottom of the market following the crash. Property values subsequently recovered dramatically, yet NAMA's projected surplus to the State amounts to approximately €5.2 billion, including corporation tax paid. Against the backdrop of a bailout that cost the State tens of billions, those returns are remarkably modest. The reality is that many assets were sold too cheaply and too quickly. Rather than retaining strategic assets for public development or managing them over the longer term for the benefit of the State, vast quantities were transferred into private hands. Similar mistakes have been repeated elsewhere. AIB shares were sold at prices that deprived the State of billions in potential value. Now we see the same approach with Permanent TSB. Time and again, the State socialises losses and privatises gains. The Bill closes an institutional chapter, but it does not close the political and economic questions arising from that period. The central lesson of the crash is that the Government made political choices about who would bear the cost of economic failure. The people who paid the price for the banking collapse were not the speculators, banks or international investors. Ordinary workers paid the price. Communities paid the price. Young people paid the price through emigration, unemployment, unaffordable housing and lost opportunities. Nearly 20 years later, many are still paying through huge rents, underfunded public services and deep inequality. As we debate the winding up of NAMA, we should not allow anyone to sanitise or rewrite what happened during that period or minimise the hardship imposed on so many people across the State. For our part, Sinn Féin will engage constructively on the Bill. We support the orderly winding down of NAMA and the completion of the IBRC process, but we will continue to demand accountability for the failure of the banking collapse and the deeply damaging and flawed political choices that followed it.

Sentiment score: -0.11