THE Green Party will demand that the NAMA legislation be changed to ensure that taxpayers’ exposure is as small as possible.
Party chairman and finance spokesman Dan Boyle said NAMA, the review of the Programme for Government, and the December Budget, would be three crucial tests of the coalition’s ability to survive its full term.
He acknowledged the concerns of both party members and the wider public on NAMA, the state agency which will buy €90 billion of property loans from the banks in a bid to restore them to health.
The risks are that the developers involved will not be able to repay those loans or the property underpinning them will never recover their value which would mean massive losses to the taxpayer.
Much depends on the size of the discount the State obtains when purchasing the loans, and Mr Boyle admitted NAMA would create a "big noose" for future generations if not done right.
"The exposure to the taxpayer is huge, and there are questions, legitimate questions, as to how the risk the taxpayer is being exposed to can be properly managed and shared," Mr Boyle told RTE Radio.
The legislation, which has been published in draft form and which will go before the Dáil when it returns from summer recess in mid-September, will have to be tightened to ensure the taxpayer is exposed "for the smallest amount of time and to the smallest amount of money".
Mr Boyle said several experts had made suggestions as to how this might be done, and those voices would have to be heard.
"The legislation has been published in a consultative form in any case, so the expectation is that there will be, and there have to be, changes."
Several Green constituency organisations have called for a special convention of party members to discuss concerns about NAMA.
Mr Boyle said the party would meet to hear those concerns, and acknowledged that some members would find NAMA unpalatable, but insisted the agency was necessary. He accepted that NAMA would serve to bail out the banks. "But if we don’t have a viable banking sector, we’re not going to get economic activity regenerated in this country. It isn’t a bailout for developers. We’re the last people to support developers."
In the party’s view, NAMA would serve as a debt-collection agency. "The debts these developers owe to the banks will still be the same debts that will have to be owed to NAMA."
Mr Boyle said the next three months would be difficult. "We have the NAMA legislation, we have the review of the Programme for Government, we have what will be a very difficult budget in December, and overcoming those three obstacles will be very much an indicator as to whether this Government can continue to a full term or not."
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, August 17, 2009
