I welcome this Bill and am glad to have the opportunity to speak on it today. The dissolution of the National Asset Management Agency is not just an administrative tidying up exercise. I would very much argue that it is a significant milestone in Ireland's post-crisis economic journey. It is a moment that deserves to be acknowledged and understood and not just processed quietly through this House. NAMA was born in crisis. It is ending in recovery. That arc from emergency to resolution is a demonstration of this State's capacity to make hard decisions, to see them through and come out the other side. I will use my time today to review that journey clearly, to acknowledge the scale of what was achieved, to be honest about the controversy that surrounded it and to say something about why the transfer of remaining functions to the NTMA is the right and appropriate conclusion. To understand NAMA's achievement we have to go back to where we were in 2009 and 2010. The global economy was in free-fall. The property market had collapsed with catastrophic force. Our financial system was sitting on tens of billions of euro in loans that were worth a fraction of what they had been written at. The guarantee of 2008 had bought some time but that time alone was not going to fix the fundamental problem of a banking system paralysed by bad debt, unable to function, unable to lend and unable to support the real economy. The question facing the Government of the day was stark. Should it let the banks collapse, should it nationalise everything outright or should it create a mechanism to extract the toxic assets from the balance sheets, allow the banks to stabilise and manage the recovery of those assets over time in a way that maximised returns to the taxpayer? The decision was to create NAMA. It was not a popular one. It was deeply controversial from the moment it was announced. There were legitimate questions raised in Dáil Éireann and across the country about the haircuts applied to the loans, transparency, who was benefiting and who was bearing the cost. I do not dismiss those questions. Many of them were asked in good faith and deserved serious answers, but the judgment of time has been clear that the decision to establish NAMA was the correct one. Let us review what NAMA achieved, because the numbers are remarkable and deserve to be stated clearly. NAMA acquired loans with the nominal value of approximately €74 billion. It paid about €32 billion for those loans, which was a discount reflecting their distressed nature. Over its lifetime, it generated a surplus income for the State of over €4 billion. An agency created in the depths of a financial crisis to manage what were essentially the worst excesses of the Irish property and banking sectors turned a profit of over €4 billion for the taxpayer. That was not the expectation of many commentators in 2010. It was not even the central expectation of many supporters of the agency. It is an extraordinary outcome. NAMA's contribution was not only financial. It played a crucial role in stabilising the property market. By managing the disposal of assets in an orderly, phased way rather than dumping them on the market simultaneously, NAMA helped prevent the kind of catastrophic price collapse a disorderly liquidation would have caused. That discipline and patience protected the value of assets held not just by NAMA but across the entire economy. NAMA also became, perhaps unexpectedly, one of the most significant funders of residential construction in Ireland during the recovery period. It funded the delivery of tens of thousands of homes, contributed directly to social and affordable housing through local authorities and approved housing bodies and helped unlock development on key strategic sites around the country. This is a substantial part of NAMA's legacy that deserves recognition, particularly in the context of the ongoing housing challenges. I should note that NAMA managed a geographically complex portfolio, with assets in Britain, across continental Europe and in the United States, and did so with commercial discipline and without the fire sale disposal many feared. It was studied internationally as a model for how a state asset management vehicle can be structured and governed effectively. NAMA staff and management should be commended on that. There is an aspect of NAMA's legacy that rarely gets the credit it deserves, namely, what it did for Ireland's reputation internationally. In 2010, we were a country the international markets had effectively written off. The interest rates being demanded on our sovereign debt were excessive. The establishment of NAMA and, critically, its credible and professional operation over subsequent years were part of the signal to international investors that Ireland was serious, we had a plan and we intended to honour our obligations. Neither the return to the bond markets, nor the exit from the Troika programme, nor the restoration of our sovereign credit rating happened in isolation. NAMA was part of the scaffolding that made that possible. I want to be fair-minded and not simply eulogise without acknowledgement of the real concerns that were raised over the years. In the interest of balance it would not be right to speak about NAMA without noting that it was not without its difficulties along the way. Questions were raised at various points in this House and before the public accounts committee, and that scrutiny was appropriate and right. No agency operating at this scale under this kind of pressure and over this length of time could expect to do so entirely without controversy and NAMA was no different. The fair reflection with the benefit of hindsight is simply that transparency and public accountability are always worth strengthening in bodies of this kind and that there is always room for a better balancing of commercial sensitivity with public oversight. That is a lesson worth keeping in mind for the future. Those questions, fairly asked and properly pursued, do not diminish the overall record. They are part of how democratic oversight is supposed to function. The agency's fundamental achievements stand on their own terms. The overall verdict on NAMA must be judged on outcomes and the outcomes it delivered. This brings me to where we are today and the specific provisions of the Bill. NAMA has substantially completed its work. The vast majority of its loan portfolio has been disposed of. Its active commercial function is at an end and what remains are a small number of residual assets, ongoing commitments in relation to certain legacy matters and a staff complement that has reduced dramatically from the agency's peak. The Bill provides for the dissolution of NAMA and the transfer of its remaining functions, assets and staff to the National Treasury Management Agency. This is entirely sensible. The NTMA is the appropriate home for these residual functions.

Sentiment score: 0.09

It has the governance structures, the financial expertise and the institutional capacity to manage what remains in a cost-effective and accountable way. Keeping a separate statutory agency alive with its own board, overheads and administrative infrastructure when the substantive work is done would be a waste of public resources. The model of a time-limited, purpose-specific vehicle has been vindicated. NAMA was designed to do a job and then to go. It is now going and that is exactly as it should be. The transfer of staff deserves a specific mention. The men and women who worked in NAMA, particularly those who joined at the height of the crisis, took on a difficult and sometimes thankless task in a highly charged public environment. Many of them were working on complex financial, legal and property matters under significant public scrutiny and, at times, criticism. They served the State well. The transition to the NTMA should be managed with full respect for their rights and their service. I ask the Minister of State to confirm appropriate protections and continuity of terms are in place for all staff affected. I will say a final word about what the passing of this Bill means because it is worth slowing down to reflect on. In 2010 when NAMA was being established, there were serious commentators – serious, informed people – who doubted Ireland could manage its way out of the crisis without a decade of depression, a sovereign default and a managed restructuring of the State's obligations. The scale of what we were facing was overwhelming but we did not default or collapse and we stabilised our banks, managed our debt, returned to the markets, exited the Troika programme and rebuilt. I support the Bill. I commend the work of those who designed and managed NAMA over its lifetime. I welcome the transfer to the NTMA as a logical, efficient and appropriate conclusion to the agency's existence. I take this moment to note for the record of the House that Ireland's response to one of the gravest financial crises in our history was not perfect, as nothing ever is, but it was, by any fair measure, a success.

Sentiment score: 0.11