The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) said it has handed over a higher-than-expected €5.6 billion of cash and assets to the State, having reached “substantial completion” of its wind-down programme.
The outcome is €100 million above an objective outlined during the summer and follows a series of target upgrades over the past dozen years.
It comprises Nama’s almost €4.73 million lifetime surplus, €450 million of corporation tax payments and the transfer of residential development property, valued at €425 million, to the Land Development Agency (LDA).
The agency said it had completed the transfer of the final €450 million of its cash surplus to the exchequer on Wednesday.
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The fear when the so-called bad bank was set up in 2009 to take over €72 billion of distressed commercial property loans at a discounted price of €32 billion was that taxpayers would ultimately end up having to deal with a large Nama balance sheet hole.
The Government plans to dissolve Nama next year and move what remains – mainly assets and loans tied to ongoing litigation – to a special resolution unit within the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), subject to enabling legislation being passed.
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The planned unit will also take over the residual assets of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, another crisis-era vehicle set up to work through the remnants of failed lenders Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society.
“This is a landmark day for Nama. It signals the end of an unprecedented intervention by the State in response to an unprecedented banking and economic crisis,” said Brendan McDonagh, who has served as chief executive of the agency since it was established.
“Nama has been effective in helping to restore stability to Ireland’s financial system and credit rating, and in generating a substantial surplus of €5.6 billion for the exchequer.”
The NTMA resolution unit is on track to end up with €30 million of a residual Nama portfolio and around five active legal cases that involve outstanding litigation, according to Nama.
The agency generated cash in excess of €180 million from its portfolio during 2025, including asset sales, rental and investment income, debt repayments and refinancing. That has brought the total level of cash generation since its inception to €48.5 billion, it said.
Nama’s mandate was widened in 2024 to prioritise and facilitate development in the Dublin docklands and deliver tens of thousands of homes.
It has “facilitated” the delivery of over 44,500 new homes since 2014, it said, 14,660 of which were through Nama funding, licence agreements or joint ventures. A further 29,906 were facilitated on sites which benefited from Nama asset management, planning or site preparation works before their sale or refinance by Nama debtors or receivers, it said.
Two key sites owned by Nama with capacity for about 4,000 residential units were transferred to the LDA to be progressed post NAMA’s dissolution.
“Ultimately, I believe Nama has achieved what it set out to achieve – a surplus, stability and creating solutions to the preventable problems created by the poor lending practices and poor regulation of the 2000s,” said Mr McDonagh.
