NO EVIDENCE had been produced that developers were buying back properties from the National Asset Management Agency through a third party at a reduced price, Nama chairman Frank Daly has said.
Mr Daly was responding to questions arising from remarks made earlier in the week by Taoiseach Enda Kenny who expressed concern that such activities might be taking place.
Mr Kenny said on Monday: “I am concerned about some reports that those who have had assets acquired from them and put into Nama have been making attempts to acquire them by a variety of methods”.
The Taoiseach had been speaking to reporters at a plenary session of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Cork. Mr Daly, who attended the session yesterday, said no evidence whatsoever of such activities had been brought to his attention.
“What I took the Taoiseach to be quite legitimately saying was that he had a concern that this could happen, and he was asking Nama to make sure it didn’t happen and that we were on top of it, and that’s absolutely legitimate,” Mr Daly said.
“My assurance is that it is not happening and we are absolutely determined that it will not happen.
“There are very strong provisions in the Act prohibiting the sale of properties back to defaulting debtors, or indeed to anybody in any way connected with that debtor and that’s a provision of the Act that Nama is absolutely determined to enforce.
“To date, our sales have been done through receivers. The very first thing we do with a receiver when we appoint them, and at several stages through the process we remind them of the fact, that there is this provision and they may not sell land back to developers, to the extent where they require a sworn declaration from the purchaser to say there is no connection, and it is built into the contract of sale.
“I don’t think in this world anybody can guarantee 100 per cent that nothing will ever happen but I can assure everybody that there is an absolute determination in Nama that this will not happen,” he said.
Last night Mr Kenny expressed satisfaction with the reassurance from the chairman.
“The Taoiseach is reassured by what Frank Daly has said and he is happy that Mr Daly understood what he was saying,” a Government spokesman said.
He said Mr Kenny had made his remarks on foot of suggestions made to him that developers were regaining control of their properties at prices substantially lower than they had originally paid.
The spokesman said that as a result of what Mr Daly had said the Taoiseach was now happy that this eventuality was being guarded against.
The issue was raised in Seanad Éireann on January 26th by Fianna Fáil Senator Mark Daly who said: “There are numerous anecdotes . . . about people who owe hundreds of millions of euro to the banks but who are illegally putting bids in on their own debt through third parties and offshore companies and buying it back at hugely-reduced rates”.
