DEPARTMENT OF Finance officials said last night the Nama scheme to be introduced in the Dáil tomorrow would be among the most complex plans ever introduced by government.
Eight separate agencies were involved last night in finalising details on the valuation that the assets agency will place on the €90 billion in loans that will be bought from covered financial institutions.
According to a spokesman, the final work on the scheme has involved officials from Finance; the Central Bank; the office of the Financial Regulator; the Attorney General’s office; the National Treasury Management Agency; Nama; the department’s legal advisers on this issue, Arthur Cox, as well as banking advisers Rothschilds.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan will brief Cabinet colleagues in the morning before revealing the extent of the discount that will be applied by Nama when buying the loans. The department said yesterday that no final decision had been taken on the nature, scope and length of Mr Lenihan’s speech to the Dáil.
It emerged last night that Green Party members endorsed the current proposals for Nama at a general meeting on the banking crisis in Athlone. The party last night released the result of the “preferendum” of the 150 members who attended and who gave weighted preferences to six possible solutions to the banks’ debts crisis.
The results showed that a Nama with the modifications given to the Green Party last week ranked highest with 657 points.The next highest preference was for the scheme based on the Swedish experience in the early 1990s.
The lowest ranked solution, in sixth place, was the Fine Gael proposal of creating a good bank. The Labour Party’s policy of totally nationalising the banks only scored moderately higher and was in fifth place. The solutions that were ranked third and fourth were, respectively: “let the markets totally decide” and the original Nama proposal without concessions to the Greens.
In a statement last night, the party said its TDs and Senators would use the results of the poll to inform its engagements with the Minister for Finance while the Nama Bill was further modified by the two Houses of the Oireachtas.
Some 80 per cent of Green Party members are in favour of Nama, party leader John Gormley has said.
Speaking outside an international heritage conference in Dublin yesterday, Mr Gormley said a “lot of satisfaction” had been expressed at the Green Party conference with the changes made to the Nama legislation.
“It is very clear that what the party wants is a version of Nama, but they want a new improved Nama, and I think we’re getting there . . . What 80 per cent of the party wants is a version of Nama where we can have a social dividend.” The party would push for changes which would secure these social benefits, Mr Gormley said.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the Greens were “all over the place” on Nama. “It’s a deplorable position in Irish politics that a party that is simply all over the place is wagging the dog of government here.”