The National Asset Management Agency’s 172-page annual report, published on Thursday, contains much information about the agency’s activities in 2012. Up to a point. Pages inform us that Nama generated €10.6 billion in cash flow by the end of 2012, completed €6.8 billion in asset sales, is on target to have repaid €7.5 billion in senior debt by the end of this year, and to inject €4 billion into the economy on various projects out to 2016.

There are pie charts detailing where Nama’s properties are located and their concentration by sector, and fine glossy aerial shots of developments that have received agency backing .

But there are also curious omissions. There is no mention of any specific asset sales, even though the agency appears to have had some big-ticket successes. There was only scant mention that it undertook its biggest enforcement case to date when it called in Treasury Holdings’ €1.7 billion loans in January 2012. It has never published a list of its individual debtors, or how much they owe. It only provides aggregated information for its 775 debtors.

In his statement, chief executive Brendan McDonagh airs his concern about how the proposed public sector pay cuts could impair its ability to “retain and allocate the correct skill sets”. Most Irish people will wonder why Nama is finding it so hard, in the current economic climate, to retain staff when it paid an average €120,535 to its 224 employees in 2012.

Nama often cites commercial sensitivities and confidentiality clauses to explain why it can't provide more details on particular transactions. That's fine, but it is the biggest property owner and developer in the country. Its decisions will have a huge bearing on the future direction of the State out to 2020 when Nama is due to be wound up. In that context, and given that taxpayer funds of €31.8 billion were used to purchase problem loans from the banks in 2010 and more again will be used to buy residual loans from the special liquidators of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation later this year, more transparency seems reasonable.