National Treasury Management Agency (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026: Report Stage Dail Éireann — 2026-06-24 ============================================================ Robert Troy (FF), Longford-Westmeath I thank the Deputies for tabling these amendments. While I fully appreciate and understand the intent behind them, I am not in a position to accept them. This matter has been considered in detail at pre-legislative scrutiny, Second Stage and Committee Stage. I agree that scrutiny of NAMA's performance and of the value delivered to the taxpayer is both appropriate and important. However, I must again set out why this amendment is neither necessary nor feasible. First, NAMA's performance has been subject to extensive oversight throughout its lifetime. Its annual and quarterly accounts were laid before the Oireachtas and audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Department of Finance conducted statutory five-year reviews and the Comptroller and Auditor General has also taken independent reviews including one published as recently as last month. Taken together, these provide a comprehensive and independent evidence base on NAMA's performance. Second, the available evidence indicates that NAMA has met and, in some respects, exceeded its objectives. It delivered a lifetime contribution of €5.6 billion to the State and eliminated a significant contingent liability through the early redemption of its senior debt. The Comptroller and Auditor General estimates a lifetime return of 6.8%, compared to the initial expectation of 5%. More broadly, NAMA is widely regarded internationally as a successful example of a state-backed asset management agency. Turning to the substance of the amendment, there are clear, practical and legal limitations. NAMA did not acquire property assets directly. It acquired and managed loans secured on property, with the assets remaining in the ownership of debtors or receivers. Once loans were resolved or the underlying asset disposed of, they exited the NAMA system. NAMA's mandate, as set by the Oireachtas, was to deal with its portfolio expeditiously. It was never intended to operate as a long-term asset holder nor would it have been appropriate to attend assets on a speculative basis in the hope of future price increases. The recent report by Professor John FitzGerald provides useful context. It notes that despite the Government facing external pressure to accelerate disposals, NAMA adhered to its strategy and, in doing so, was able to maximise value. The report concluded that this was the right approach. As market conditions improved, many borrowers refinanced or repaid their loans. In such cases, loans exited the NAMA system and the agency could not, and should not, have prevented this. This is a normal feature of a recovering financial system. It is also the case that in the post-crisis environment, debt levels in many instances exceeded underlying asset values. In that context, agreed disposal strategies were a necessary part of deleveraging and reflected the financial realities of the time. As a result, NAMA does not systematically retain or control information on subsequent resale values or updated valuations. Constructing such a database retrospectively would require extensive third-party data, much of which are not publicly available or are commercially sensitive. More fundamentally, even if such data were available, the proposal would be inherently counterfactual. It relies on assumptions about future market conditions, financing costs and risks that cannot be reliably reconstructed. It does not reflect the context in which NAMA operated - a distressed market, significant uncertainty and a statutory obligation to reduce risk and dispose of assets over time and not to speculate on future price movements. Subsequent valuations taken in isolation do not provide a reliable basis for assessing decisions taken at the time. In many cases, assets were further developed, restructured or invested in after disposal and any uplift in value reflects those subsequent actions. This is not unique to NAMA but a normal feature of property markets. Crucially, only the property owner holds the full information on post-sale investment, including capital and operating costs. This information is essential to any robust comparison but is not accessible, even to the Department of Finance. Without it, any analysis would be incomplete and potentially misleading. There are also strict, statutory confidentiality obligations limiting the disclosure of debtor-specific or commercially sensitive information. These obligations continue after NAMA's dissolution. It is important to consider the broader context. NAMA has delivered a strong return to the State, repaid its debt in full and substantially completed its mandate, and successfully managed a complex and high-risk portfolio by supporting financial stability. NAMA was established to manage impaired loans, not to hold assets indefinitely in anticipation of future gains. It operated within a statutory and state aid framework that required it manage and dispose of assets over time. A speculative holding strategy would have exposed the State to ongoing risk and delayed deleveraging and would have potentially hindered economic recovery. In that context, comparison with later market values does not provide a meaningful basis for assessing decisions taken at the time nor is it well-founded to assume that assets could simply have been held longer to generate higher returns. While the objective of transparency is fully accepted, the approach proposed in this amendment would neither be feasible nor produce meaningful results. NAMA's performance has already been subject to extensive audit reporting and independent review and for those reasons, I will not accept the amendment. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-24