I thank the Ceann Comhairle. At least I am keeping it in the county. It is a seamless transition. I am pleased to speak on this Bill. While the Bill's provisions are mostly technical and procedural in nature, the import of NAMA and the IBRC, the history attached to these institutions, and their purpose, certainly were not and are not. Seventeen years on from its controversial establishment, NAMA is today being given a decent burial. Thirteen years on from the effect of tearing up the IBRC promissory notes, this zombie bank is being liquidated. On balance, this is a milestone; this is a good thing. It is important today that we reflect on why these institutions were set up in the first place and on how they were managed. We also need to reflect on the lessons that need to be learned to ensure the citizens of this country are never again saddled with the debts and long-term consequences of the actions of a class of developers who flew too close to the sun egged on by a political elite of enablers, out of control bankers who funded the developers' misadventures and, indeed, the actions of unquestioning regulators who got far too close to them all. Irresponsible frenzies of tax cutting coupled with over-spending, allied with an over-reliance on one or two unreliable tax heads to fund the madness that commenced at the start of the 2000s led directly to the economic collapse and an impact on our society and political system that is still spinning out. We still cannot say with any certainty that the outworkings of that catastrophe have in any way concluded. There are lessons here for the way in which our economy is managed today and into the future. While I do not want to exaggerate, there are worrying signs that all the lessons of the disaster that kicked off in earnest only 18 to 19 years ago have not been fully understood. The shadow of the crash still looms; most notably in a dysfunctional housing and construction sector that still has not fully recovered. We see the impact of this every single day. There are more than 17,000 people homeless in what is now, objectively, a rich country. Annual housing targets are routinely unmet. Housing is out of the reach of far too many working class people. There is the smashing of the social contract that urgently needs to be pieced back together. NAMA, in terms of the legislation governing its work and the priorities laid down by successive Governments, has one would argue done a good job on what it was asked and required to do. On its own terms, that is what it would say. It has handed more than €5.6 billion in terms of a lifetime contribution to the State. I recall only too well when NAMA was set up in 2009 the fear the taxpayer would ultimately have to keep bailing out the agency, an agency that it is worth recalling took over, as the Minister of State stated, €74 billion of distressed assets at less than half that initial valuation. That was a genuine fear. That was an insight into the fairly legitimate sense of catastrophe and fatalism that abounded at the time as the country crept towards the bailout signed up to in 2010. I will not go into the details here but we were all critical at the time of the risk of fire sales of assets that, in effect, belonged to the taxpayer. I remember a lot of the NAMA exposure originally was in the UK and that market recovered more quickly than property values and the market in Ireland. It was there that NAMA did much of its early substantial transactions and later as the property market improved in Ireland, as property values rose, more of NAMA's work was focused here in the domestic market. At the pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill, NAMA defended itself and pointed to independent assessments of its work, and I accept that. To a degree, one's position on whether or not greater value might have been achieved by selling portfolios and properties later than they were sold is a subjective position. I absolutely understand that. Positions tend to be taken on these kinds of matters with the benefit of hindsight. I do acknowledge the independent assessments that have taken place of the performance of NAMA. Would the Minister of State take it on board the following in the context of the Committee and Report Stages of the Bill? One of the recommendations made by the committee in the context of our assessment at pre-legislative scrutiny stage was that a further independent assessment of the performance of NAMA would take place, with the benefit of hindsight and as the dust is settling on that era, if I can use that term. That is something the Minister might consider whether by way of inserting a provision into the primary legislation or, indeed, by the way of regulation requiring NAMA, or the NTMA as it will be responsible for NAMA. That is something that should be considered. It is good to see, and the Minister put it on the record, that there are residuals of around €25 million only that would be transferred from NAMA to the NTMA. That is a good thing. Regarding the IBRC, while the story of that tumultuous time is yet to be written and fully comprehended, we should remember the significance of the bank bailout and the path it led us on as a country. The IBRC was the zombie bank that was managing the remnants of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society - institutions that will go down in infamy in this country and, indeed, internationally. It was just 13 years ago when the promissory notes were torn up and significant steps were made to get the proverbial monkey off the backs of the Irish people and their economy. That in itself was a not insignificant landmark on our road to recovery. Turning to the Bill and the recommendations made by the committee in terms of pre-legislative scrutiny, I made the point about that independent assessment of NAMA. That would be very important from the point of view of accountability and transparency and that is something that should be considered. The committee also recommends that Minister for Finance seek quarterly reports from the liquidators of the residual assets following the dissolution of NAMA that would detail the outstanding liabilities and expected timeframes for recovery and that the committee would be provided with same. Again, I am not necessarily persuaded that this needs to be placed in primary legislation but if the Minister by way of regulation or through other means would make a commitment that this would happen, that would attract the support of committee members and all members of the Opposition. It is also worth noting that the committee did recommend that the NTMA should publish a note in its final accounts to detail NAMA's specific liabilities once NAMA is dissolved. That will enable us to keep track of progress in that regard and ensure that those liabilities simply do not get consumed into the overall NTMA analysis and annual reports. The point was also made as well that the specialist expertise that has been built up and that will transfer to the NTMA should not to be lost. Considerable expertise has been built up in that agency over many years and it is the kind of commercial and housing expertise that is required for the State to meet its own albeit modest objectives in terms of housing development and the raising of finance to support housing development. Some other recommendations were made as well that I will not go into but the Minister of State will be familiar with them. I would ask the Minister of State and his officials to scrutinise the committee's report on pre-legislative scrutiny and consider some, if not all, of those recommendations for Committee and Report Stages. My last point harks back to the banking situation at the time NAMA was established when the country was in the throes of recession and when all hope appeared to be lost. A significant decision was taken in this House that taxpayers would essentially bail out the main financial institutions. We, in the Labour Party, decided that it was best that we did not support that decision but others did. That we did not is immaterial; it was passed that evening and we made the case as to why that initiative should not have been taken and the implications of that. It brought us closer to the bailout and the loss of our economic sovereignty in late 2010, the outworkings of which have yet to conclude. One of the implications of that was the bailing out of Permanent TSB. The State still owns a majority stake in Permanent TSB. An offer was made by BAWAG P.S.K. recently to purchase the State's remaining share in Permanent TSB. The Minister of State will argue that this is another milestone but it appears to me that the only policy this Government, its previous iteration and the one before that had with regard to banking policy was to rid themselves of what they see as a burden, namely, majority State ownership in banks that the taxpayers of this country bailed out. Our position in the Labour Party is clear. For many years, we were of the view and made the case that PTSB could remain in majority State ownership and that State ownership should be used to try to expand that bank, create a third banking force in this country, break that Bank of Ireland-AIB duopoly and try to introduce more significant competition for householders and small businesses in a market that where competition is very badly needed. It is quite extraordinary given the decision taken almost 20 years ago now to bail out the banks that there has not been a debate in this House on the future of PTSB. That is quite extraordinary. The Government might laud itself and say that this is an expression of the normalisation of the economy now, if I can describe it as such, and the fact that we no longer have any concerns about how our banking system is functioning. However, that is hardly the point given the significant decision made a number of years ago. We requested it at Business Committee meetings over the last period of time. It is quite extraordinary we have not had an informed debate on what we are doing in PTSB, why we are doing it, the nature of the offer, potential implications for banking staff employed in PTSB and implications for account holders and crucially the branch network because from what I can read, there are no guarantees from the prospective new owner and majority owner of PTSB. I have lots of different questions about the Government's decision, why the decision was taken and when PTSB was made aware by the Department of Finance that prior to BAWAG coming forward, another interested party appeared to express an interest in making a pitch to buy the State's share. Lots of different questions have not been ventilated at all in this House. It is quite extraordinary given the burden carried by the taxpayer over many years, the implications of the bank bailout, the burden carried by the taxpayer over many years and the implications of the bank bailout for the Irish taxpayer, our economy and our society more generally. I ask the Minister of State to reflect on that and that he and the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance, Deputy Harris, agree to a debate on the implications of the future of PTSB in this House without any further delay.

Sentiment score: 0.09