THE BRITISH chancellor of the exchequer has said he does not believe that a quick sale of British assets by the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), taking advantage of an uplift in the British property market, would benefit the Irish taxpayer.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Alistair Darling said he did not see the argument for “a hasty sale” given that many of the assets are commercial property.

About a fifth of the €80 billion in loans being transferred to Nama are assets in Britain, many of which are in London.

“I would have thought from the Irish Government’s point of view, though, that they would be quite keen to ensure that these assets are sold as and when they will want to get their money back too for the Irish taxpayer,” he said.

“I don’t see the argument for a hasty sale at the moment, given that a lot of the stuff is commercial property,” he added.

Mr Darling said the British and Irish governments had agreed to “keep in touch so we know roughly what they [Nama] are doing”.

He said: “I am quite sure that it wouldn’t be in their interest to do something that would actually depress prices, which would end up in them getting less money for the assets.”

Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh said in November that Nama expected overseas property markets, which accounted for 27 per cent of the agency’s assets, to “recover more quickly”.