Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 12 June 2014
66. Deputy Michael McGrath asked the Minister for Finance his views on the criticism in the Comptroller and Auditor General's recent report regarding off-market sales conducted by the National Asset Management Agency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25107/14]
View answerI refer the Deputy to the NAMA Chief Executive's evidence before the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) on the 29th of May during which it was confirmed that all NAMA-related property disposals subject to review by the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) were fully openly marketed.
As the Deputy is aware, the C&AG, as part of its recent review of NAMA, examined a sample of 144 property disposals with a gross disposal value of €1 billion. The C&AG concluded "overall, almost all had been sold through an open competitive process or with testing of disposal prices against market valuation". The C&AG went on to state that this provides reasonable assurance that the prices obtained by NAMA were the best on offer in the market at the time a property was sold.
In 4 of the 144 cases sampled, with a combined gross disposal value of €500,000, the C&AG stated that there was no evidence at the time of the report that the properties were openly marketed. However, having looked in detail at the 4 cases post publication of the C&AG report, NAMA has provided the C&AG with evidence that the 4 properties were in fact openly marketed. This evidence includes written confirmation from the selling agents that the properties were fully advertised through the normal channels, including on property websites such as www.myhome.ie and www.daft.ie.
