NAMA boss turns spotlight on auditors

THE chairman of the National Asset Management Agency, Frank Ryan has controversially questioned the auditing role of accountants in the run-up to the collapse of the banks which are currently transferring €80 billion in bad and doubtful loans to NAMA.

Given what has gone on, it was hardly credible for auditors to say “it is not its responsibility to draw attention to significant risks that may become evident in the course of its audits, such as, for instance, the extraordinary concentration of risk that developed at a number of Irish financial institutions during the 2004-2007 period.”

Mr Ryan made his comments in a speech to the Institute of Certified Public Accountants annual conference in Maynooth, Co Kildare, yesterday.