Nama fees may cost more than tribunals - Kenny

FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny has predicted that Nama’s accountancy and legal fees will cost more than payments to lawyers at the tribunals of inquiry.

He said it was a “secretive organisation’’ set up by Taoiseach Brian Cowen. “Its costs, and the costs being delivered to accountants and lawyers in there, will make the tribunals look like chicken feed the way this is proceeding.’’

Mr Kenny said Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan had said that Nama would bring “a wall of cash for credit’’. The Taoiseach had said that passing the Nama legislation would cleanse the balance sheets of the Irish banks and enable them to increase the provision of credit.

Mr Cowen said he did not agree with Mr Kenny that the banking system could be fixed without recapitalising the banks. “That intervention has been found to be necessary by every government in the developed world with the exception of Canada.’’

He said he rejected Mr Kenny’s suggestion on the motivation for Nama, and considered it an “awful slur against the integrity of those who run the agency, including its chairman, the former chairman of the office of the Revenue Commissioners.’’

Mr Kenny said he rejected the Taoiseach’s assertion, adding that when the Minister for Finance contacted him about that gentleman, he had described the chairman as a person of absolute integrity.

He said the banks were either demanding personal guarantees from small businesses or making it so difficult that they would only lend on the basis of property. They were unwilling to consider loans on the basis of cash flow or volume of turnover.