Implications of Enda Farrell Story

Implications of Enda Farrell Story

Implication on NAMA and the Irish public: Tarnishing its reputation, failing the Irish people and violating our trust.

NAMA's reputation has been on shaky ground ever since its foundation. Nothing like one in every ten citizens in Ireland has more than the vaguest notion what NAMA is or what it does, even though it has such a critical role to play in our economy as it is tasked with 74 billion euro worth of property deals and restoring the country's banking system. Its "veil of secrecy" is partly to blame and its reluctance to provide public access to the information on how it spends millions of euro of taxpayers' money has led to a "them and us" culture. Even though little is known about its operations anyone can understand the transaction that turned a spotlight on to this immensely powerful and secretive agency.

Sale of property to Mr Farrell for 420,000 euro (800,000 euro less than the 1.2m euro it had commanded during the boom) exposed NAMA to serious allegations about how it does its business. It raises serious questions such as how on earth could such a transaction take place without NAMA's apparent knowledge and how much does NAMA, an agency we are meant to trust, know about who is buying property it controls??? The purchase of Lucan property has gone through without the agency even noticing that it was selling it to one of its executives. Given NAMA's own requirement for the borrowers on its books to complete what it terms a "Form A" when they wish to sell a property throws doubt on NAMA's ability to keep track of deals and puts NAMA under intense pressure to explain how such a senior executive could get away with this private deal. Among the information that must be provided on the form are the details of the proposed sale and the identity of the proposed purchaser. NAMA declined to comment when asked if Form A had been completed and approved by its officials prior to the sale of the Lucan property.

Mr Farrell has declared that he was notified by the agency's compliance unit that he could purchase a NAMA property in a private deal provided it was used as a private residence. It would be shocking if this is the case and it would expose a very disturbing society within the agency. "NAMA must immediately clarify its policy on agency executives purchasing property under the agency's control by way of private deals", TD Michael McGrath stated. There is great concern that this is not limited to just one case. If Enda Farrell managed to 'seal the deal' how many deals of similar nature may have been done to date? Fine Gael's Michael Creed said he could see no reason why employees at the agency should be allowed to buy any property from NAMA, or why any property should be sold privately.

NAMA's reputation has been scarred even further when it went to the High Court on September 12 and revealed that, while investigating the purchase of the Lucan house by Mr Farrell, it had uncovered evidence of the possible unauthorised removal of valuable information from the organisation. NAMA told the court that the dissemination of commercially sensitive material could cause irreparable