Gareth Robinson, the son of First Minister Peter Robinson, has denied any involvement in the sale of Nama assets in Northern Ireland worth more than €5 billion to US investment group Cerberus.
His comments follow last week’s allegations by independent TD Mick Wallace that a Northern Ireland politician or party may have been in line to receive up to £7 million as a result of the Nama sale, referred to as Project Eagle.
According to the Irish News, Gareth Robinson’s public relations company, Verbatim Communications, was contracted by Northern Ireland law firm Tughans - which worked on the Cerberus sale - to manage an event hosted by the solicitors firm in June 2012.
However, Mr Robinson said no representatives of his PR company has “facilitated or were in any way involved in the sale of Nama assets to Cerberus”.
“Neither the company nor anyone representing the company benefited from the Cerberus/Nama transaction nor did they ever expect to,” Mr Robinson was reported as saying.
A meeting was held between Cerberus, First Minister Peter Robinson and others at Stormont just 10 days before the US company bought the 850-property Nama portfolio for circa €1.5 billion
Former Tughans managing partner Ian Coulter also attended the meeting.
Mr Coulter left Tughans law firm in January after it emerged £7 million (€9.8 million) had been diverted to an Isle of Man bank account.
According to Mr Wallace this sum was to have been given to a politician or a political party. However, Tughans said all the money had been recovered from this account.
Gareth Robinson said on Wednesday he would welcome any investigation into the sale to US company Cerberus.
State agency Nama will appear before the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee on Thursday. Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Assembly’s finance committee plans to hold hearings into the deal next week.
The PSNI confirmed on Wednesday it would launch a criminal inquiry into Mr Wallace’s allegations.
The announcement came as it emerged Mr Wallace has refused to appear before the Dail’s Committee of Public Accounts to discuss allegations he made about the Nama sale.
In a statement on Thursday morning Nama said the PNSI investigation was focused on “activities relating to the purchase of these assets not the sale.”
It said there was “ no truth to the suggestion that £7 million” of the sale proceeds of this transaction ended up in an Isle of Man bank account.
Nama added that it received the full proceeds from the sale. “The origins of that £7m are not Nama and there has been no suggestion that it was but many media continue to make this error.”
“Some media have mistakenly claimed that Nama sold assets that were valued/worth circa €5bn for circa €1.5 bn. Again this is simply wrong and is a very serious error. Nama sold the assets for exactly what they were worth and not a cent less.”
According to Nama, “the assets may - years earlier - have been worth more but the fall in their value was a result of the property crash and they were not worth anything more that the price Nama achieved when sold by Nama”.
