NAMA boss under fire over bank claim ‘U-turn’

NAMA chief executive Brendan McDonagh has been accused of performing a major U-turn after saying there is no evidence banks behaved criminally in their dealings with the agency.

The chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, Fine Gael TD Bernard Allen, said this was very different to what Mr McDonagh had indicated in a recent committee hearing.

He said Mr McDonagh had provided “effectively misleading” evidence to the committee and that there was an onus on him to clarify this. Mr McDonagh will be called before another hearing of the committee in early January.

The dispute has arisen over Mr McDonagh’s original evidence to the committee last month, when he appeared to discuss the progress NAMA was making in removing toxic loans from the banks.

At that hearing, Fianna Fáil TD Michael McGrath said there were serious question marks about the information the banks had provided to NAMA about the quality of their loans.

Under law, it is an offence for an individual to “intentionally, recklessly or through gross negligence provide false or misleading information” to NAMA.

“It needs to be investigated by the gardaí and the Director of Corporate Enforcement,” Mr McGrath said, adding that there was a “a clear, systematic pattern of false and misleading information being fed into NAMA”.

In response, Mr McDonagh said he did not disagree with anything Mr McGrath had said, adding: “I can assure the deputy that we have established the facts and will make that information available to any regulatory authority, if appropriate.”

But Mr McDonagh has told Financial Regulator Matthew Elderfield that NAMA has no evidence the banks engaged in criminal conduct. Mr Elderfield wrote to the committee this week to update it on a letter he received from Mr McDonagh on the issue.

“NAMA’s letter does not refer any matter to us in respect of the conduct of any regulated entity,” Mr Elderfield wrote. “Further, NAMA’s letter informs us that it does not have a valid basis to suspect that there has been any criminal offence or other contravention of the NAMA Act.”

Committee chairman Mr Allen said this represented a “major U-turn” by the NAMA chief executive.

“Mr McDonagh must now clarify why he gave effectively misleading statements to the Public Accounts Committee,” Mr Allen said.