Noonan says Nama has taken €447m from banks with poor documentation

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has confirmed that the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) docked banks some €477 million for poor documentation associated with bank property loans.

In a written Dáil response to Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, Mr Noonan said that arising from reviews of the loans by Nama, “questions were raised about the enforceability of security in certain cases and, as a result, it was necessary to impose appropriate legal discounts”.

He added: “To account for these and to account also for financial obligations identified during the course of legal review, downward adjustments aggregating to €477 million were made to the acquisition value paid by Nama on these loans.

“As a direct consequence, the consideration paid to the participating institutions was duly discounted to take account of poor documentation.”

Mr Noonan continued: “The question of taking action against auditors of institutions for the poor standard of documentation at those institutions is a matter for the institutions themselves.”