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OPINION:The Government is not telling the truth about the costs involved with the asset agency – and is not following well-established procedures for dealing with problem banks, writes KARL WHELAN

AMID THE intense focus on stories of public money being wasted by John O’Donoghue and various Fás officials, it is easy to forget the potential cost to taxpayers of the proposed National Asset Management Agency (Nama). Nama plans to pay €51.3 billion in guaranteed government bonds for assets that it admits are now worth only €47 billion and which everyone knows are rapidly falling in value. To put this in context, €1 billion would keep John O’Donoghue travelling in the style he enjoyed as Minister for 10,000 years.