Conor D McGuinness: Demands Answers on €430,000 NAMA Pay

Mr Margaret, Sean Comhairle, Minister 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 do have very serious concerns about accountability, governance and the extraordinary salaries that will be paid that are utterly out of kilter with public sector norms and Sinn Féin will be bringing forward amendments at committee stage to address those concerns. Because before we close the book as a state and as a people and before you as a government close the book on NAMA there are very serious questions that still have to be answered. Under your plans the CEO of NAMA Brendan McDonagh appears set to transfer into the NTMA on the same terms and conditions he currently enjoys. We're talking about a salary of approximately €430,000 per year and that places him amongst the top 0.1% of earners in the state. It's more than €100,000 higher than the salary of the Governor of the Central Bank. And last year your government even attempted to appoint this same individual as a so-called housing star, effectively sidelining the Minister for Housing before backing down under sustained pressure from this side of the House. And so the public are entitled to ask whether there is any length that you will not go to in order to protect his extraordinary salary package. This government continues to bend over backwards to protect the NAMA CEO's salary of €430,000 per year. Last year... MS ORDONEZ-BENNETT I'm sorry, I hate to interrupt, but you can't actually bring something like that up in that regard, with regards to a civil service salary. DR QUINN I think this is an extraordinary salary that is part and parcel of the winding up of a state agency. MS ORDONEZ-BENNETT You have to have consideration for the fact that he's not here to defend himself. I'd ask you just to be cautious. DR QUINN Okay, I'll continue with that noted. Last year the so-called housing star plan collapsed under pressure. Now you want to fold an individual back into the NTA while preserving the same extraordinary pay package. And contrast that for a moment, Minister, with the National Ambulance Service workers who have been forced onto picket lines simply to secure modest improvements in paying conditions and to address chronic recruitment and retention problems. Frontline workers are told there is no flexibility, no urgency, no money, but when it comes to protecting a senior executive or any senior executive associated with NAMA, suddenly the state can move and seems really motivated to move mountains. We also need to be honest about what NAMA represents and the political choices that followed the collapse. You'll try to present this bill as a 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 this state. Following the crash in 2008, the state undertook extraordinary measures to stabilize the banking system. Banks were recapitalized 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 maximized 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 over $42 billion on those loans. Losses ultimately borne by ordinary people through austerity, cuts to services, higher taxes, emigration, and lost opportunity. The Comptroller-in-Order General estimated in 2022 that the net cost of the bank stabilization measures amounted to $45.7 billion. And nowhere is the failure of the post-crash political and economic model clearer than in housing. Because 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, apartment blocks, offices, and land banks were sold off at rock-bottom prices, assets that could have been strategically retained for long-term public housing instead of becoming investment vehicles for global finance. The legacy of NAMA, the legacy of austerity, and the economic ideology of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is still visible across every community in the state. Following the crash, we sold Irish property and land banks at rock-bottom prices to vulture funds and institutional investors, while ordinary people carried the burden. Today, we are living with the consequences. Record 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 that 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. We have seen similar mistakes repeated elsewhere. You sold AIB shares at prices that deprived the state of billions in potential value. Now we see the same approach with permanent TSB. Time and, again, this state socialises losses and private gains. This Bill closes an institutional chapter, but it does not close the political and economic questions arising from that period. The central lesson of that crash is that governments 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. The banks are the international investors. Ordinary workers paid the price. Communities paid the price. Young people paid the price through emigration, employment, unaffordable housing and lost opportunity. 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 this legislation. We do support the orderly winding down of NAMA and the completion of the IBRC process, but we will continue to demand accountability for the failures of the banking collapse and for the deeply damaging, flawed political choices that followed it.