Nama board will be high calibre, insists Mansergh

MINISTER OF State for Finance Dr Martin Manserghexpressed confidence that the board of the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) will be of a high calibre.

Reacting to Opposition concerns, Dr Mansergh said there was no danger of Nama becoming like Fás, “although I hasten to add that I have great respect for the activities of Fás on the ground, notwithstanding what happened at board level”.

Dr Mansergh agreed that Labour spokeswoman Joan Burton had entirely legitimate concerns about the way corporate governance was carried out in many places, both public and private, in the past.

“People were sometimes put on boards because they enjoyed a high reputation and were, therefore, a good advertisement for the institution to which they belonged, or if they were high-profile public figures they could open doors and have contacts at home and abroad,” Dr Mansergh added.

“Many lessons have been learned from the disastrous experiences of the past couple of years, and not alone for Nama.” Dr Mansergh said that people would be much more on guard and vigilant in future so that disasters of the type they had seen would not happen again.

“This is particularly likely to be the case in Nama, which will become the highest profile public organisation in the country and on which so much will ride,” he added.

“The idea of any board members being passengers, neglecting their responsibilities or being flower pots, as Deputy Burton put it, can be excluded.”

Dr Mansergh was speaking during the debate on the report and final stages of the Nama legislation. The Bill passed all stages in the Dáil by 81 votes to 62.

Earlier, Opposition parties had criticised the guillotining of the legislation. Ms Burton said she would ask board members to be very aware of what Nama is proposing to do “in monetary terms”.

She added: “We are talking about €54 billion in taxpayers’ money and liability.

“The loans are, for the most part, damaged, distressed and limping loans, and yet we are to divert all these issues to some cosy committee.”

Ms Burton said that somebody who was a member of a State board in the time of Charles Haughey had written to her recently. “That person was on the board of an important national institution, but because the person asked questions, he became persona non grata and a pain in the head of the board,” she added.

Referring to the qualifications of people appointed to the valuation panel, Dr Mansergh said the Minister must be satisfied “that the person has relevant expertise or specialist knowledge’’.

Other qualifications, to which the Minister would have regard, included “relevant expertise or specialist knowledge”, as well as experience in “property management and sale’’, “valuation” and “construction and land development”.

Fine Gael's Kieran O'Donnellwarned that the legislation provided the banks "with all the gravy, without providing anything in return".