Ireland's political and cultural magazine
State’s bad bank fails to take responsibility for another inept hit to the public purse as it improperly sells to someone connected to the original debtor, blaming IT systems. By Frank Connolly (November edition, Village) NAMA Chief Executive, Brendan McDonagh, appearing before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC), failed to deliver a credible explanation as […]
Both NAMA (The National Asset Management Agency) and Local Authorities have been criticised for ‘land-hoarding’, ‘sitting’ on sites particularly in Dublin and the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) and not developing land that could be used to address the current housing crisis. Despite the amount of land under their control, Minister Eoghan Murphy has recently asked the […]
The revelation that the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) has failed to disclose “relevant material” to the Commission of Investigation into its controversial sale of its 11.5 billion (£1.24 million) Project Eagle loan portfolio in the North in 2014 will not come as any surprise. Many NAMA watchers have been wondering how the Commission, headed by […]
What is meant by the Rule of Law and is such a concept honoured in Ireland today? I believe that the rule of law though arguably an unqualified good is not being adhered to in this state save mostly by the judiciary and that the legal system and erratic observance of legality by state officials renders our […]
An investigation by BBC’s ‘Spotlight’ programme broadcase on, 29th February, into the sale of NAMA’s huge property portfolio in Northern Ireland has revived an embarrassing issue for the outgoing government. Village readers will recall how distressed commercial and residential properties, previously valued at £4.5 billion, were sold to US vulture fund Cerberus, for just £1.2 […]
Pádraig Ó Ríordáin, a partner with Arthur Cox solicitors, is recent governments’ go-to lawyer for finance and now aviation. After a seven-month search by Fine Gael’s scrupulous Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar, the appointment, over the becalmed Christmas period, of high-flyer Pádraig Ó Ríordáin to the role of chairman of the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) […]
Let’s leave our useless banks with worthless IOUs, writes Mick O’Broin. Even before it emerged that the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) was definitively bailing out developers, its dealings with banks were problematic. NAMA is, as Enda Kenny said from the opposition benches, “another blank cheque to bailout the banks”. And, like the bank bailouts […]