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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
October 1 3
price for the portfolio was £2.2bn, for what was
a par value of £4.5bn, it was eventually sold for
just over £1.3bn, one of NAMA’s biggest losses.
The attack tactic did not go down well with
most members of the PAC, nor with Wallace, who
was present for the full day hearing although he
is not a member of the committee. Neither did
the sometimes unconvincing claims by McDon-
agh about the Project Eagle sale to US fund,
Cerberus. It was Wallace who first disclosed that
£15m in fees were to be paid by Cerberus to US
lawyers, Brown Rudnick and Belfast law firm
Tughans. Wallace also told the Dáil in July 2015
that £7m had been located offshore in an Isle of
Man account in connection with this payment
and that some of it was intended for a politician
or political party in the North. A former member
of NAMA’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee
(NIAC), Frank Cushnahan has since been secretly
recorded stating that he is due £5m for his work
on the sale.
In an extraordinary moment at the PAC last
week, McDonagh claimed that he did not know
that Brown Rudnick and Tughans were working
for Cerberus until 3 April, 2014, after the Project
Eagle sale was completed.
“It seems extraordinary that NAMA did not
know who the legal advisors to Cerberus were
until after the Project Eagle portfolio was sold”,
Wallace told Village.
“Brown Rudnick and Tughan’s were the advi
-
sors to PIMCO until they pulled out of the deal on
the legal advice of their compliance department
who considered that the agreed fee arrange-
ments were in breach of US law. That was just
weeks before the deal was done with Cerberus.
If the senior executives of NAMA did not know
who the legal advisors to Cerberus were, then
someone should be fired for incompetence at
least.
“It also raises the question as to who was
really running the show. According to both Daly
and McDonagh at the PAC, the data room where
all the detailed information was made available
to bidders was controlled by the head of asset
recovery, Ronnie Hanna”, Wallace said.
Hanna was arrested by members of the
National Crime Agency in Belfast last May along
with Cushnahan and solicitor Ian Coulter, for-
merly of Tughans, as part of the police
investigation into the Project Eagle purchase.
None of the three has been charged and their
bail restrictions were lifted recently.
Wallace continued: “I am not convinced that
the PAC can get to the bottom of this given that
it is restricted to the parameters of the CAG
report. The CAG has done a thorough investiga-
tion but he is limited to an auditing or ‘value for
money’ exercise. His report has highlighted a
number of weaknesses in relation to the process
- the restricted number of tenders, the question
of access to the data room where some clearly
had more than others and the conflict of inter-
ests evident in Cushnahan’s role as NIAC
member. He was acting as a consultant for a
number of NAMA debtors. It is not enough to say
that everything was rosy because he did not
deliver anything for these debtors. The CAG says
there should have been more questions asked
about Cushnahan given the conflicts he had him-
self disclosed to NAMA. And why was he meeting
prospective buyers with Hanna and accountant
David Watters, before the Project Eagle portfolio
"It seems extraordinary that
NAMA did not know who the
legal advisors to Cerberus
were until after the Project
Eagle portfolio was sold.
Someone should be fired
for incompetence",
Wallace told Village
1 4 October
was put up for sale?”.
Neither is Wallace convinced that the Commis-
sion of Investigation will get off the ground any
time soon.
“I would not take it for granted that it will be
set up anytime soon. I think Fine Gael will brazen
it out for as long as they can and Fianna Fáil don’t
want an inquiry. Any investigation has to go
beyond Project Eagle, which is just one of the
many portfolios. The problems with how NAMA
has done its business run right through the
organisation”, he told Village.
Wallace has learned more about NAMA from
anonymous contributions to his new website
namaleaks.ie although he is conscious that
every claim and allegation needs to be verified
“There are people with agendas and grudges
out there. But we do not just swallow everything
we are told. Everything must be checked. Neither
am I being fed a line by one or two disgruntled
developers as NAMA has suggested. I’ve been
blamed for a lot of things but stupidity is not one
of them”, he says.
“Problems relating to NAMA that are gradu
-
ally coming into the public domain are very
worrying. Not just because of the billions of
euro that the organisation may have cost the
Irish people but because there are issues at
play that go to the heart of how we do business
in Ireland”.
Wallace is not convinced
that the PAC can get to the
bottom of this given that it is
restricted to the parameters
of the CAG report. Nor
that the Commission of
Investigation will get off the
ground any time soon
NEWS
The sle of Projec Egle lons in April
probbly los he Se of more hn £m
(€m). Nm spen £.bn buying he
lons in he firs plce, bu clculed h
hey were worh £.bn he end of .
Nm los per cen on he sle of Pro-
jec Egle compred o per cen on sles of
oher sles of Norhern Irelnd lons.
Overll, poenil bidders were
pproched nd offered he chnce o ke
pr in he new ucion. Only hree bidders
remined he finl sges of he process.
One poenil bidder wihdrew becuse i
ws refused reques for exr ime o sudy
he sses.
A number of he firms which urned down
inviions o bid for Projec Egle com-
plined of lck of relevn informion nd
ime.
Circ €m pr deb, single connecion
porfolio secured on Irish office nd reil
sses, which ws sold o Deusche Bnk in
Q .
Circ £m pr deb, muli-connecion
porfolio secured primrily on Briish
sses, which ws sold o Okree in Q
.
Circ €m pr deb, muli-connecion por-
folio secured on vrious sses including
number of prominen Irish hoels, which ws
sold o Deusche Bnk in Q .
Circ €m pr deb, single connec-
ion porfolio secured minly on Irish
bsed sses, which ws sold o
Deusche Bnk in Q .
JEWEL
Circ €.bn pr deb porfolio secured on
Irish sses, predominely reil, incorpor-
ing Dundrum Town Cenre nd % ownership
ineres in number of oher shopping cen-
res, which ws sold o Hmmerson PLC nd
Allinz Rel Ese GmbH in Q .
Circ €.bn pr deb grnulr porfolio,
secured on sses predominnly loced in
Irelnd nd Briin, which ws sold o Cer-
berus in Q .
October 1 5
man whose body was found in the
Dublin mountains on Friday 30 Sep-
tember had successfully campaigned
to have a quarrying operation in the
area closed down last year.
Michael McCoy, a father of three in his early
sixties, who was last seen walking his dogs in
the Brittas area of county Dublin on the previous
day, was a leading member of the Dublin Moun-
tain Conservation Group.
Last October, he won a landmark judgment
when the High Court ordered the closure of the
quarrying operation on the site of the 465 metre
Butler Mountain near Brittas, county Dublin.
Ms Justice Marie Baker ordered that the unau
-
thorised quarrying by Shillelagh Quarries Ltd
should cease and remediation work carried out.
McCoy’s successful application for an order to
cease the quarrying operations on a 3.27 hectare
area of a larger 25-hectare site was supported by
South Dublin County Council. Two special areas
of conservation (SACs) are located near the
quarry site.
The case was taken against Shillelagh Quar
-
ries Ltd and the site owners.
According to the heritage officer of An Taisce,
Ian Lumley, McCoy was a committed environ-
mentalist whose main concern was that
developments in the scenic Dublin mountain
area where he lived should comply with the law.
This despite much of the media implausibly
describing the killing as resulting from a “land
dispute”.
“I was in regular contact with Mr McCoy over
the years”, Lumley told Village. “He was very
focused on the surrounding environment. All he
was concerned with was that development activ-
ity should be in compliance with the law. He was
a reasonable, measured and sensible person
who was also realistic when it came to the legal
process. He campaigned about illegal dumping,
quarrying activities and development generally
if he felt they threatened the environment”.
In her judgment last year, Judge Baker rejected
a claim by the quarry operators and landowners
that the works had commenced before the
coming into force of planning legislation in 1964
and were therefore exempted and not
unauthorised.
She also rejected their argument that the case
was time barred and/or that the council and Mr
McCoy were guilty of such prolonged and unex
-
plained delay that the court should refuse the
orders sought.
Ms Justice Baker said Shillelagh Quarries Ltd.
had carried out their commercial activities
despite a refusal of their application for planning
permission by An Bord Pleanála in 2010.
She said that the quarrying work had “created
a discordant landscape in an area of exceptional
public amenity”.
A man believed to have been known to Mr
McCoy was arrested and later released without
charge a day after the discovery of the dead
man’s body close to a forest track at Ballinascor-
ney Hill near Brittas at 4.00 a.m. on the Friday
morning. A file has been prepared for the Direc-
tor of Public Prosecutions. The distress of
McCoy’s family has been aggravated by the dis-
appearance of one of their long-tailed boxer
dogs and they have issued pleas for help in find-
ing the dog, who was seen on the Ballinascorney
Road, and asked anyone finding her to take her
to the DSPCA.
Michael McCoy was a hero
who defended the beautiful Dublin
mountains from over-development
Last October, he won a
landmark judgment when
the High Court ordered the
closure of the quarrying
operation on the site of
the 465 metre Butler
Mountain near Brittas
E
lsewhere, Judge Baker is expected to deliver her judgment later
this month in the long running defamation case brought by a
member and former member of Wicklow County Council against
the council and now retired county manager, Eddie Sheehy.
Councillor Tommy Cullen and former councillor Barry Nevin took the
action following comments in a press release issued by the council in
April 2013 which accused the politicians of making “unfounded and mis-
conceived” allegations in relation to the compulsory purchase of lands
by the council close to Three Trout stream at Charlesland near Grey-
stones several years previously.
The press release said that the “misconceived” allegations of Cullen
and Nevin has resulted in a loss to the Council of circa €200,000 in
respect of interest foregone and administrative costs in addition to the
costs of an independent review commissioned by then environment
minister, Phil Hogan into the CPO.
The defamation claim was first rejected by the Circuit Court two years
ago but the decision was appealed and the case continued for several
weeks in the High Court earlier this year.
Councillor Cullen last week met environment minister, Simon Cov-
eney, and asked him to complete the long promised review by his
department into a series of allegations in relation to planning and rezon-
ing matters, as well as illegal dumping, in county Wicklow.
