Wilson meets NAMA Northern Ireland Advisory Committee

Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson has met with Frank Daly, Chairman of NAMA and Peter Stewart, Chairman of NAMA’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee together with members of the Committee to discuss progress and future work.

This was the first of what will be regular meetings following the establishment of the Northern Ireland Advisory Committee in May 2010.

Speaking after the meeting, the Minister said: “This was a very timely meeting as NAMA have just completed the transfer of the second tranche of loans from their participating banks.

“The first of the Northern Ireland based loans have now begun the transfer process and this involvement will increase rapidly between now and the end of the year. Ultimately loans with a nominal value of approximately €5 billion will transfer from Northern Ireland and the role of the Northern Ireland Committee will become increasingly important.

“I emphasized the strategic importance of NAMA’s work for our economy and NAMA representatives assured me again that there will be no 'firesale' of assets and that these will be carefully managed over the medium term. Our Northern Ireland Committee representatives will have a key input to that process. For my part, I agreed to ensure that the NAMA Northern Ireland Committee representatives are kept informed of NI Executive decisions, e.g. plans for disposal of further assets to ensure that there is coordination of activities and avoid flooding the local market with land sales, and that we should examine how this close co-operation could be extended to the ongoing work of the banks.

Mr Wilson concluded: “For me it is clear. Without NAMA we might have had a catastrophe. With NAMA we have the opportunity to manage our way through the process. The first two tranches of loans transferring to NAMA have totaled some €27billion with banks receiving approximately €13billion of securities. To this extent money is flowing again and banks must make sure that this money in turn flows to businesses and generates economic recovery.”

Notes to editors:

NAMA is the Republic of Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency. Chaired by Frank Daly, NAMA was established in December 2009 to obtain the best achievable financial return for the State on loan assets acquired by it. It was part of a range of measures by the Irish Government designed to safeguard the viability of a number of systematically important financial institutions.

The NAMA Northern Ireland Advisory Committee was announced on 13 May 2010. Its Northern Ireland members are Mr Brian Rowntree and Mr Frank Cushnahan. In addition to Brian Rowntree and Frank Cushnahan the membership of the Committee includes Peter Stewart (Chair), Brian McEnery, Eilish Finan and Ronnie Hanna (NAMA’s Head of Credit and Risk).

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