Kerry Senator misses chance for Nama showdown

THE FIANNA Fáil parliamentary party had the big noises in from Nama on Wednesday.

Chairman Frank Daly and chief executive Brendan McDonagh accepted Deputy John McGuinness’s invitation to Leinster House, where they gave Fianna Fáil deputies and Senators an overview of Nama’s work and achievements.

But there was one notable absence at the meeting, much to the disappointment of the audience: Kerry Senator Mark Daly, one of Nama’s most vocal critics, who claimed in the Seanad that the agency has been breaking the law in relation to the sale of assets under its control.

The auctioneer said he was told by people in the property industry that there was “widespread corruption, to put it mildly” in the way Nama went about its business.

However, despite requests for information to stand up his claims, Daly has yet to present Nama with proof.

Needless to say, his colleagues were looking forward to fireworks on Wednesday. But there no sign of Mark.

“It was a bit of a let-down when he didn’t turn up. We were expecting a very heated discussion, seeing as he is such a public protagonist of Nama,” said a disappointed deputy.

Sadly for them, Daly was in America on a week-long fact-finding trip as part of a three-man delegation from the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs. Committee chairman Pat Breen and Sinn Féin’s Pádraig MacLochlainn made up the party, arriving on Sunday in Atlanta and going on to Houston in Texas and San Jose in California.

They were there to meet “US business organisations, individual US businesses, Irish American organisations and networks, as well as Irish officials working for State agencies in the US and Irish consulate staff, to get their perspectives on trade”.

We note from the schedule that the trio dined on Thursday night in the home of Joe and Mary Cassidy of Twin Peaks, San Francisco. It’s not the Twin Peaks from the TV series. But the town’s website points out, “There have been three movies filmed here in just the last 14 years”: Somebody Please Help Me; Marked; and, just filmed, Necrosis.