THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency has referred to the Garda what it described as a possible test case of a property developer who failed to disclose assets to the State loans agency.

Aideen O’Reilly, the agency’s head of legal, told the Public Accounts Committee it had given details of the case to the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation.

The agency would meet gardaí shortly to review the evidence and determine if this was a case that could go to court, she said.

Nama said that the agency had secured €514 million in unpledged assets controlled by debtors in what it has described as “the most fractious and contentious part” of its engagement with developers.

Brendan McDonagh, chief executive of Nama, told the committee that it had secured the reversal of €160 million worth of assets, including cash and properties in Ireland and overseas, company shares and loans which had been transferred to family members.

Nama had spent €400,000 tracing assets and this had yielded €5 million of assets, he said.

Excuses from certain debtors concerning their assets were similar to the “dog ate my homework” excuse from a child, he said.

Mr McDonagh said Nama was “well on the way” towards meeting its target at the end of next year of repaying €7.5 billion of the €32 billion of debt borrowed to buy loans with a face value of €74 billion.

Following a review of strategy, the agency’s board expected Nama to at least break even and that most of the 20 per cent decline in property prices since the agency valued the loans at November 2009 would be recovered before 2020, Mr McDonagh said.

Following the review this year Nama’s “base case scenario” was to break even, he said.

The agency had said in 2010 that it would make a profit of €1 billion by the time it was wound down in 2020.