Nama’s two most senior officials have “no idea” why Project Eagle winner Cerberus was willing to pay an “extraordinary” £15m to Brown Rudnick and Tughan’s for information seemingly already available to the firm.

Nama has written to Independents4Change TD Mick Wallace to hit out at his “unsubstantiated allegations” and tell him failure to hand over evidence to gardaí could be a criminal offence.

The winner of the controversial multibillion euro Project Eagle Nama deal paid two firms heavily involved in a previous bid £15m for help “accessing” Finance Minister Michael Noonan and “the Northern Ireland executive”.

The successful bidder for the Nama Project Eagle portfolio will tell the Public Accounts Committee today that legal firms involved in the deal told them they would offer information to other bidders if they did not pay support fees of £15m.