NAMA mystery - Still playing softball

NAMA was given an almost impossible task — how could anyone, or any organisation no matter how well resourced, easily unravel some of the spectacularly obtuse arrangements made by bankers or developers to conceal their activities?

Nevertheless it is disappointing that NAMA cannot say if it has been successful in its efforts to identify assets transferred by bankrupt developers to wives or others to put them beyond the reach of debtors. The agency said it was pursuing about 30 spectacularly indebted developers who, despite insolvency, live as if we were still in the Celtic Tiger’s halcyon days.

Even though the courts can, under the NAMA Act, reverse transfers of assets if that transfer was designed to avoid obligations, not one case has reached the courts. This, and the fact that not one reckless banker has faced the courts, brings our entire democracy into disrepute.