Alleged secret payments to a Northern Ireland Nama adviser form part of the “biggest financial scandal in the history of the State”, an Independent TD has claimed.

Former adviser Frank Cushnahan was secretly recorded accepting a £40,000 (€48,000) cash payment from a Nama borrower John Miskelly, according to a BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme.

Mr Cushnahan is already being investigated in relation to his role in Nama’s Project Eagle deal, the largest ever property transaction in the North.

Last night Wexford TD Mick Wallace said the latest allegations formed only a part of what he described as a wider scandal in Nama.

He reiterated his call for an independent inquiry into the State agency which has responsibility for disposing of distressed assets acquired from the banks after the property market crashed.

The Comptroller and Auditory General has also completed a report on Nama, which it submitted to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan on August 8th.

Mr Noonan will publish the C&AG’s report before the Dáil formally resumes on September 27th.

Huge surprise

Mr Wallace said it was a matter of huge surprise that Nama was not being investigated by any agency.

He said Mr Miskelly had also implied he had handed other recordings to the UK’s National Crime Agencies.

“Nobody is investigating Nama. Nobody is looking at the working at Nama,” said Mr Wallace.

In the Dáil yesterday, the Wexford TD said Nama had claimed Mr Cushnahan had no access to any commercially sensitive information.

“Who in God’s name believes that any more? How could this man be able to command so much money if he had no confidential information?”

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said in the Dáil that Taoiseach Enda Kenny should meet party leaders about the Nama allegations.

Mr Adams, who asked for time to debate the issue, said his party and others had raised the sale of 860 properties for €1.6 billion from distressed loans of buyers based in Northern Ireland to a US venture fund. There was “some credibility to our allegations”.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach to call a meeting of all party leaders to deal with the very significant legal issues involved in the case.

However, Mr Kenny told them that there was a criminal investigation going on, and “we can’t interfere with that”.