Defection sparks NTMA review

The head of the NTMA, John Corrigan, has promised to review the movement of personnel from his agency to the private sector following the latest high-profile defection of Michael Torpey to Bank of Ireland.

Mr Torpey, who was seconded from the NTMA to the Department of Finance as head of the shareholder management unit, announced last week that he is to take up a position as the chief executive of corporate and treasury management at Bank of Ireland after a three-month gardening leave.

Mr Corrigan was appearing before the Oireachtas Finance Committee yesterday. Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty said if Mr Torpey had been a civil servant then he would have been prohibited from making a similar move for up to two years after leaving his position.

Mr Corrigan said the NTMA was established outside the civil service in order to attract the skills necessary to perform its high-end functions. “However, I accept the point the deputy is making and it needs to be reviewed.”

The NTMA chief said he was “quietly confident” that the country would exit the EU/IMF bailout programme at the end of this year. The troika has prepared a paper on what contingency credit lines would be available to the country as it left the programme. The NTMA was currently looking at the options outlined in this paper.

The ECB’s outright monetary transactions (OMT) programme is another support mechanism available to the Government upon exit. If either option was used it would be “broadly welcomed” and would not be seen as another bailout, said Mr Corrigan.

At a meeting of EU finance ministers at the start of this week it was announced that the Commission would examine extending the maturities on the existing bailout loans. Mr Corrigan said the move would save Ireland “billions rather than the millions.”

The NTMA did not factor in a debt deal on either the promissory notes, or the €30bn pumped into the pillar banks. However, investors had expectations of a deal on the promissory notes, although not as much had been factored into striking a deal on the pillar banks, he said.

It is unlikely that the Government will recover anything from the €34.7bn it used to backstop losses in Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. But it could expect to recoup most of the €30bn it put into the pillar banks over time.