Hard questions for hard times

THE Green party has deliberated and is supporting the NAMA proposal, but what about the rest of us?

Having read as much as I can of the prognostications of the experts — economic and political — please can anyone answer the following questions?

1. The Government is to receive into NAMA all the debts, loans and assets of the banks that are linked into the building/property development industry. These are estimated to be €77bn. The present market value is estimated to be €47bn. But NAMA will pay the banks €54bn on the basis of an estimation process called “long-term economic value”. Has any government or banking system in the world done this before?

2. When has any one of our governments in more recent times got their estimates correct?

3. Will NAMA be composed of the same civil servants, bankers, valuation personnel who created the problem in the first place?

4. What guarantee have we that payments NAMA makes to the banks will free up credit?

5. Is the world financial crisis over?

6. Should not the market deal with the aftermath of this property bubble/crash which was, after all, brought about by the banks, the development and the building industry and abetted by a government which we elected many times and whose regulatory role was non-existent and a media which — with some rare exceptions — never sought to question or examine in any detail what was going on? Would this not be the real and moral way to deal with this property crash? Yes there will be pain, but it will be real and not some temporary fix that staves off the evil day at immense cost to the taxpayer. Would the market deal with this crash better than a panel of experts creating a market value?

7. Do we need to reconstruct our own values? Have we lost a shared sense of country, place, community and destiny for our children and grandchildren? Is part of the rebuilding of this shattered country and economy a redefining of ourselves, our sense of honesty, integrity, accountability, responsibility, public service, civic duty, commonsense, care for others and love of country? Or is it business as usual?

John P Clancy

Parsonstown

Batterstown

Co Meath