NAMA will not see inflationary ‘credit splurge’

THE National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) will not lead to a “credit splurge” that will re-inflate the property market back to boom levels, the Taoiseach insisted.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen said concerns that too much credit could be made available by banks when NAMA was set up were raised by Government officials in a meeting with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last April.

It emerged this week that a senior IMF official, Steven Seelig, who will also sit on the board of NAMA, told Finance Minister Brian Lenihan at a meeting on April 29 that NAMA will not lead to increased lending.