Gormley admits NAMA costly but ‘least worst option’

GREEN leader John Gormley admits that NAMA would be “extremely expensive and unfair to workers” but insists it is “the least worst option”.

His comments came as the Greens were heavily criticised for failing to secure more protections for the taxpayer in the legislation to establish NAMA.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the Green Party had spent the last week “telling anyone who would listen that it had effected major changes” to the legislation.

Mr Kenny said the changes had been simply “cosmetic”. He pointed in particular to the promise by Communications Minister and Green TD Eamon Ryan last week that there would be “an equal sharing of the risk” between NAMA and the banks.

This should have meant a 50% share of the risk for the banks, but their total risk actually amounted to just 5% under the mechanism unveiled by the Government, Mr Kenny said.

“Somewhere along the way, a zero went missing. If anyone finds it, send it to the Green Party promptly,” he said.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said the risk-sharing mechanism was “no more than a puff of green smoke, a derisory concession to an ineffectual party whose only value now is the numbers that are required to keep Fianna Fáil in government”.

But Mr Gormley yesterday argued that the public was protected in three ways under the NAMA plan – through the risk- sharing mechanism; the State’s ownership of stakes in the banks; and through a levy that may be imposed on the banks if NAMA makes losses.

Any remedy open to the Government would be “extremely expensive and unfair to workers”, he admitted, but NAMA was the “least expensive and least unfair option”.

Mr Gormley said the Greens would be seeking further changes and if they were not granted he could not see his members supporting NAMA at the party conference next month.

That conference will also debate a revised Programme for Government. Mr Gormley said the Greens would have to pull out of coalition if members rejected NAMA or the programme.

“If the Programme for Government is rejected, if NAMA is rejected, yes, there’s no question that we could not continue our participation in government,” he told RTÉ Radio yesterday.