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Breaking stories
Nama pays 66 developers €100k-plus
By Paul O’Brien, Political Editor
Nama is paying 66 developers €100,000 or more a year, latest figures show.
The three highest-earning developers get €200,000, with another 25 earning between €150,000 and €199,000.The figures were obtained by Fine Gael TD Kieran O’Donnell following queries he raised when Nama management appeared before the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee this month.
Mr O’Donnell, the vice-chairman of the committee, said the level of salaries raised questions as to whether the taxpayer was getting value for money.
A total of 168 heavily indebted developers are receiving salaries in return for co-operating with Nama on the management of their assets. Their salaries combined come to €15.5m.
The figures show:
* Three developers are earning €200,000;
* 25 are earning between €150,000 and €199,000;
* 38 are earning between €100,000 and €149,000;
* 73 are earning between €50,000 and €99,000;
* 29 are earning up to €49,000.
Mr O’Donnell said the key issue was the overall cost to the taxpayer and the likely return.
“This is about value for the taxpayer.”
When Nama management appeared before the committee, Mr O’Donnell said ordinary people would view the salaries as “crazy” and said Nama needed to explain the rationale behind them. “If Nama or some other vehicle had not been put in place, the businesses of many of the developers in question would either be in receivership or would already have been liquidated. There is a sense of fairness involved here.”
He questioned if the agency had some way of clawing back the money in the long term if the developers returned to profit and were able to free themselves from Nama.
“Let us assume that the assets involved will recover their value and will either be refinanced by the developers or sold on. Does Nama have a clawback provision to enable it to recover the management fees being paid to those developers at present?”
Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh said the reality was that “very few” of the developers in question were capable of refinancing their operations.
He argued that it was cheaper to pay the developers to manage the assets rather than appoint receivers who could cost much more.
“The taxpayer is not being affected at present because all of the money is coming out of Nama’s resources in terms of the realisation of the assets,” he said.
“We are obliged to consider matters in terms of what is the best commercial return and who is the best person to manage the asset.
“If a debtor has €1bn or €1.5bn worth of assets and if a receiver is appointed in respect of those, then depending on the complexities involved one will be obliged to pay that receiver between €500,000 and €1m per year to manage the assets.”