NAMA fails the credibility test

WE have had nothing but broken promises from Fianna Fáil since the last general election? Why should the latest NAMA “promise” be any way different?

At the Galway races, Taoiseach Brian Cowen promised that the interests of the taxpayer would be protected by NAMA and that, in time, banks would provide the credit that Irish businesses desperately needed.

But is this the real reason why NAMA is being touted as the one and only saviour of this nation? And who really benefits most from NAMA?

Vested interests aside, NAMA is a complex and highly conceptual solution. Why should we think that the same government that stumbled through evoting, PPARS, Pulse and decentralisation now has the competence to make NAMA succeed?

Are we sending pit ponies to race at Cheltenham and fooling ourselves into the belief that they actually have a chance of winning.

Our only consolation and hope is that the NAMA model is so fundamentally flawed, so driven by vested interests close to Fianna Fáil and so ill-conceived that it may be dead before it even sees the light of day.

Jack Feeney

Botanic Hall

Addison Park

Glasnevin

Dublin 11