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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
1 0 September 2016
NEWS
T
he NAMA story is the media gift that
keeps on giving. Not a day passes but
further damaging revelations emerge
of the manner in which the agency
charged with selling off the dis
-
tressed and other assets arising from the
State’s property collapse has behaved.
Charged with disposing of commercial and
residential properties on an enormous scale
across Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US,
NAMA and its executives have regularly encoun-
tered media criticism, court actions and political
challenges.
The latest such challenge comes from the
Namaleaks project sponsored by TDs Mick Wal-
lace and Clare Daly. People who consider
themselves victims of NAMA can post their
experiences online and anonymously on this
website.
Launching it in mid-August, Wallace claimed
that Namaleaks.com is a secure and anony-
mous whistleblowing platform if used in a
careful and discreet fashion.
He advised that users should:
“Take your personal computer and go to a
network that isn’t associated with you or your
employer, such as at a coffee shop. Ideally you
should go to one that you don’t already fre-
quent. Leave your phone at home, and buy your
coffee with cash. Choose a coffee shop without
security cameras, or a spot within the shop
where cameras aren’t recording. Be aware of
your surroundings, turn your screen away from
curious neighbours”.
Speaking to Village Wallace added that:
“We have received some really interesting
correspondence but obviously we require hard
evidence and we are very measured as to how
we approach it”.
According to Wallace, it is too early to say how
much information will be processed through the
site but already signs are that people, including
former property developers and professionals
as well as many who have lost their homes and
businesses as a result of the crisis, are
prepared to share
their stories. He
claims to have up to
forty separate sources
of information con-
cerning NAMA and its
operations and
recently took excep
-
tion to an effort by one
hostile newspaper to
the suggestion that he is being used by one or
two disgruntled but powerful developers to
undermine the work of the agency.
Given the scale of transfers going on in Ire-
land’s distressed property market where a
small number of wealthy and powerful vulture
funds are acquiring substantial commercial and
residential portfolios through NAMA or from
receivers, at huge discounts, it is certainly inev-
itable that there will be sore losers.
With the news that many of these funds have
been availing of the controversial Section 110
tax status to greatly minimise their taxes on
vast property transactions, the questions over
the manner in which the State has allowed
unprecedented transfers of Irish wealth to
global funds are likely to intensify.
US fund Cerberus paid just a paltry €2,500 in
taxes from its €1.6bn purchase of Project Eagle,
NAMA’s Northern Ireland loan book, a deal that
is mired in controversy and inquiries on both
sides of the border, in Britain and in the US, as
reported extensively in Village.
It was Mick Wallace who first revealed in July
2015 that a number of people, including a senior
politician or party was to receive monies from
the sale of Project Eagle to Cerberus. It has
since emerged that a member of the Northern
Ireland Advisory Board of NAMA, Frank Cushna-
han, was to receive a €5m fee payment from the
deal, while solicitor John Coulter was involved
in routing funds from the purchaser to an off-
shore account.
Although denied by NAMA the controversy
implicated others at executive level in the
agency including its former head of asset man-
agement, Ronnie Hanna, who resigned from his
post in late 2014 just six months after the sale
to Cerberus was agreed.
Competing bidders claimed that Cushnahan
and Hanna were involved in meetings with them
in advance of the bidding process, while Hanna
worked in an executive role with NAMA. Both
men and Coulter have been questioned by the
PSNI in connection with the Project Eagle
purchase.
Peter Robinson was the most prominent
political casualty of the affair and announced
his resignation as First Minister and DUP party
leader in November last year, although he
insisted that he had done nothing wrong in rela-
tion to Project Eagle. This followed the
appearance at the Stormont finance committee
of loyalist flags protester and blogger, Jamie
Bryson, who said that Robinson was to receive
Namaleaks
Developers and their
professionals: get to an
internet café
by Frank Connolly
We have received
some really interesting
correspondence but
obviously we require hard
evidence and we are very
measured as to how we
approach it
September 2016 1 1
The focus will return to the
activities of NAMA in the
South and in particular
to cases where former
officials of the agency have
been involved in dubious
activities
monies from the transaction.
Bryson’s appearance at the finance commit-
tee in September 2015 is now the subject of
fresh controversy after it emerged that he was
coached in advance by its then chairman, Sinn
Féin MLA, Daithi McKay.
Bryson texted McKay and his SF colleague
Thomas O’Hara in advance of his appearance at
committee during September 2015 and received
advice on how best to get Robinson’s name into
the proceedings without being blocked on pro-
cedural grounds. Bryson was widely blamed for
leaking the damaging texts but vigorously
denied doing so. A member of the Stormont
finance committee, Jim Wells, told Village that
Bryson leaked his own texts because he was
annoyed that a loyalist parade near his home in
Rasharkin, county Antrim was recently stopped
by the Parades Commission and local national-
ists. Again, Bryson disputes this. However,
Village has learned that Bryson is almost cer-
tainly the source of the leak to the media which
brought down McKay.
In the wake of the leaked texts, McKay, stood
down as a Sinn Féin MLA. O’Hara also resigned
his Sinn Féin positions. Following McKay’s res-
ignation 18 members of the party in North
Antrim did likewise in a rare moment of collec-
tive disunity and internal dissension for Sinn
Féin in the North. Among the claims being made
by Monica Digney, a former SF member of Bal-
lymena District Council, is that McKay would
not have acted without clearance from others
further up the party hierarchy but again this is
denied.
In this regard the other parties at Stormont
have come looking unsuccessfully for the head
of Sinn Féin finance minister and former finance
committee member, Máirtin O’Muilleoir, who
was mentioned in the leaked texts but it is
unlikely that he will fall on his sword unless fur-
ther damaging information emerges. Sinn Féin
Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, has
insisted that O’Muilleoir will not be going any-
where soon in a clear indication that Sinn Fein
will not ship any further damage from the con-
troversy which has distracted from the
fundamental questions remaining over the Pro-
ject Eagle sale and purchase.
It also appears that the DUP does not want a
crisis just months into this executive but it will
equally be determined that any further damage
to its reputation and that of some of its most
prominent personalities and supporters is
avoided as the various criminal and other
inquiries into Project Eagle continue.
So the focus will return to the activities of
NAMA in the south and in particular to cases
where former officials of the agency have been
involved in dubious activities including the
leaking of insider information.
Already two officials have been charged with
offences involving the unauthorised disclosure
of information on NAMA debtors to others. Enda
Farrell pleaded guilty earlier this year to a
number of charges of leaking confidential infor-
mation for his own benefit and received a
suspended sentence. It is understood that a
number of other charges were dropped in
exchange for his guilty plea and there may be
further litigation by a number of parties over
claims that details of their distressed assets
were supplied without their knowledge or per-
mission to external financial bodies.
Again this has been denied by NAMA. The
case of another former official employed by the
agency is going through the courts following
the arrest in July of Paul Pugh who is accused of
leaking information on the assets of builder,
John McCabe, for financial gain.
Following the arrest, Wallace told the Dáil
that the former official had previously come on
the radar in relation to other allegations con-
cerning NAMA and the TD has indicated that
other revelations about alleged wrongdoing by
people employed by the agency will follow.
What he and the others involved in the Nama-
leaks project are hoping is that further
damaging information will emerge which will
support their call for a Commission of Investi-
gation into the Project Eagle sale and purchase
and into other aspects of the agency’s work. In
this regard he and Daly are supported by Sinn
Féin and the other left leaning TDs in the Dail
while Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been resist-
ing such a move.
At the launch of Namaleaks Wallace also
said:
“It is unfortunate that our Government does
not want NAMA to be accountable to the people
of Ireland. Much information has already come
to our attention, which highlights serious prob-
lems in relation to how NAMA has operated.
Despite the fact that many worrying issues
regarding NAMA have been brought to the
attention of the Government and the Opposi-
tion, on the floor of the Dáil, there remains, a
stubborn reluctance to hold NAMA to account,
or properly address the serious concerns
through a Commission of Investigation”.
For Fine Gael and finance minister Michael
Noonan in particular, any investigation involv-
ing his approval of the sale of Project Eagle
would be most unwelcome particularly as he
finds himself grappling with the EU Commission
ruling that Apple Inc. owes €13 billion in unpaid
tax to the Irish state. In early 2014 Noonan was
informed by NAMA executives that other bid-
ders had offered fee payments to people
associated with the agency in order to close the
deal. Unfavourable revelations about any of this
in an Inquiry could prompt a sudden end to his
long political career.
Dear Mr Wallace and Ms Daly...
