The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) today insisted it would pursue developers who attempted to put assets beyond the scope of the agency by transferring them to family members.

In a statement this morning, Nama said it would go through the courts if developers did not return the assets consensually within a set time.

“Nama is acutely sensitive to the risk that developers have tried - or will try - to transfer assets from their own names to spouses or other family members in order to remove them from the scope of Nama,” it said. “The agency is pursuing developers to bring such assets back.”

The statement follows last night's Prime Time Investigates on RTÉ, which highlighted cases where assets may have been transferred to spouses or family members.

“Nama can confirm that in some instances where this was undertaken, it is not going to be effective to shelter them as the same persons who the assets are transferred to are also borrowers in their own names,” the agency said.

It said it had already been successful in three cases where a total of €130 million of such transfers were reversed.

In 2010, Nama approved foreclosure action against 22 borrowers.