Nama to reject C&AG’s Project Eagle report

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) is expected to this week strongly contest the findings of a report that it may have lost "hundreds of millions of euro" because of how it handled the sale of its Northern Ireland property portfolio.

The report, due to be published on Wednesday after Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has briefed his Cabinet colleagues, is expected to further fuel calls for a commission of inquiry into Project Eagle – Nama's 2014 sale of properties in the North for €1.6 billion to US firm Cerberus.

The Comptroller & Auditor General’s (C&AG) assessment of the sale process and its outcome is expected to be strongly contested by the agency which, it is understood, will argue that the assumptions being made by the State auditor do not stand up to scrutiny.

The contest between the two State bodies will have nothing to do with the allegations of possible impropriety associated with the sale, which sources said are not addressed in the report. Rather, the report has to do with whether the sale met the agency’s own overall targets.

At the weekend, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin joined politicians from other parties in calling for an inquiry into the sale. The calls came in the wake of a report in The Irish Times disclosing the C&AG's finding of "shortcomings" in the sales process.

Credibility

Sinn Féin and Labour also called for a statutory commission with Labour's Alan Kelly saying new legislation would have to be introduced to allow for an all-Ireland inquiry. He said a refusal by politicians in the North to co-operate would "damage the credibility of Northern Ireland politics".

The C&AG's report was commissioned after allegations that Belfast businessman Frank Cushnahan, who had been advising Nama, had also been working for a US company that was seeking to buy the agency's Northern Irish property portfolio.

Mr Cushnahan has denied any wrongdoing.

Very serious allegations’

Northern Ireland's First Minister, Arlene Foster, rejected calls for a cross-Border inquiry last week and, at the weekend, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Brokenshire said the Stormont Assembly was the "appropriate place" to consider the "very serious allegations".

Nama is due to appear before the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee on September 22nd.

Committee member Noel Rock, of Fine Gael, said if the answers sought are not received at that stage, an inquiry may be necessary.

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said yesterday the Government needs to “face the fact it cannot run away from this any longer.”

Nama pulled out of a proposed sale of the assets to US group Pimco after it learned it had agreed to make substantial payments to Mr Cushnahan, as well as two firms of solicitors, if the sale went ahead.Following the subsequent sale to Cerberus, it emerged Ian Coulter – managing partner of Tughans, a firm of Belfast solicitors which had worked for Cerberus and, previously, Pimco – transferred £6 million in fees from the deal to an Isle of Man bank account, without his firm's knowledge. He resigned once it was discovered.