Dear NAMA, would you like to buy my flat?

FINE Gael’s Leo Varadkar said his offer to sell his negative equity apartment in to the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) demonstrates the “bizarre logic” behind the Government’s toxic assets plan.

He made the offer in a “tongue in cheek way” to demonstrate how much the state is paying to banks for toxic loans and what it would mean to ordinary mortgage holders if they were to get the same deal.

When the Government’s valuation method for loans was being discussed in the Oireachtas Finance Committee, Mr Varadkar decided to calculate in his head what this would mean in terms of his own place in Rosehaven Apartments, Carpenterstown, Dublin.