Nama considering bonuses for developers

The Nama board is considering offering bonuses to property developers that are working with the agency.

No official proposal has been made yet. Nama chief executive Brendan McDonagh told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that 132 such developers are currently managing assets for the agency and in receipt of salaries of up to €200,000. He said bonuses and other incentives are under consideration by Nama.

Mr McDonagh added, however, that he believed few people would be in line for bonuses.

Three developers are on salaries of €200,000 with a further 13 earning upwards of €150,000 and 32 more in receipt of a salary of €140,000 to €150,000 from Nama, Mr McDonagh told the committee yesterday.

PAC chairman John McGuinness hit out at Nama for its handling of complaints from the public.

Mr McGuinness said that while Nama’s overriding concern was to achieve value for the taxpayer, a degree of compassion and humanity must also steer the agency in its dealings with the public and the way it handles complaints made against it.

Both Mr McDonagh and Nama chairman Frank Daly defended the agency.

Mr Daly said members of the public are actively encouraged to contact Nama should they wish to make a complaint which would then be investigated by both he and Mr McDonagh.

Under questioning from Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald, Mr McDonagh said Nama had met with all of its debtors and rejected any suggestion it was in any way heavy-handed in its dealings, adding that the agency must be tough but fair.

On Wednesday, the PAC met in private session with the family of a farmer who was being prosecuted by Nama and who, in 2012, took his own life.

The widow of Philip De Vere Hunt wrote to the PAC seeking to give her testimony.

One of Nama’s companies, the National Asset Loan Management (NALM) took a case against Mr De Vere Hunt and his business partner over a €30m AIB loan to develop a shopping centre in Clonmel, Co Tipperary.

Earlier this month, NALM issued High Court proceedings against Mr De Vere Hunt’s son Robert and his wife Annette, just two weeks before the anniversary of Mr De Vere Hunt’s death.

Also at yesterday’s hearing, Mr McDonagh defended the sale of a site at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin, for €7.5m in 2013, only to be sold on again for €17.5m a year later.

Mr McDonagh said that the next best bid was €2.5m less than that of the winning bidder which represented the best value for the taxpayer at the time. Planning permission was subsequently refused and it was sold on for more than double the price Nama received.

The vastly changed economic landscape and stronger commercial property market had facilitated the higher price but, Mr McDonagh said, Nama was not in a position to foresee such a pick-up at the time of the sale.

On Wednesday, Nama redeemed another €500m of senior bonds, bringing its cumulative debt redemption to more than €16bn. Nama has now redeemed 55% of the senior debt issued by the agency, €9.1bn of which it has repaid in 2014.

The agency is two years ahead of its debt redemption target schedule and now expects to have 80% redeemed by the end of 2016.