Peter Robinson denies 'scurrilous and unfounded' Nama payment allegations

Democratic Unionist Party leader Peter Robinson has rejected allegations he was to receive any payment linked to the North's largest ever property sale.

Dismissing as baseless the accusations made to a Stormont scrutiny committee, Mr Robinson, who has temporarily stood aside as first minister to facilitate talks to save the devolved Assembly at Stormont, said he would be willing to appear before MLAs.

In a hard hitting statement, Mr Robinson said: “I repeat, I neither received, expected to receive, sought, nor was I offered a single penny as a result of the Nama sale.

“The allegations made today lack credibility and can have no evidential basis. The scripted performance was little short of pantomime. It is outrageous that such scurrilous and unfounded allegations can be made without providing one iota of evidence.

“I am happy to appear before the committee.”

In evidence to the finance committee at Parliament Buildings Belfast, high profile loyalist blogger and flag protester Jamie Bryson named the DUP leader among five people to receive a share of a “success fee” linked to the €1.66bn sale of assets owned by Nama to US investment firm Cerberus.

The fee was to be paid into an off-shore account controlled by Ian Coulter, a former managing partner of Belfast-based law firm Tughans, the committee heard.

Mr Bryson said: “This was a success fee that was to be paid in to a dormant Danske Bank account in the Donegal Square West branch (in Belfast) and from there it was transferred to an off-shore account.

“There were to be a number of beneficiaries to this fee and I will refer to them simply as person A, person B, person C, person D and person E.

“I can now tell this committee without fear of contradiction that person A is Mr Peter Robinson MLA, person B is (developer) Mr Andrew Creighton, person C is (accountant) Mr David Watters, person D is (ex Nama adviser) Mr Frank Cushnahan and person E is (solicitor) Ian Coulter.”