Assembly seeks updates on investigation into Nama sale

The UK's National Crime Agency must give regular public updates on its investigation into a £1.2 billion property sale by the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), Northern Ireland Assembly members have said.

Disclosure is required from the NCA to ensure public confidence, MLAs said at a special meeting of Stormont's finance committee following Tuesday's BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme.

It broadcast allegations that Nama's former Northern Ireland adviser Frank Cushnahan was secretly recorded accepting a £40,000 (€48,000) cash payment from a Nama borrower, John Miskelly.

The recording broadcast by Spotlight was allegedly made in a hospital car park in 2012, when Mr Cushnahan was still working as an adviser to Nama.

Mr Miskelly is recorded as saying: “There’s £40,000 in that and it’s in bundles of two, Frank.”

But the NCA told The Irish Times: "The NCA investigation into the sale of Northern Ireland assets owned by the Republic of Ireland's National Assets Management Agency remains live and we are not able to offer further information."

Responding to the programme, Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt said he was deeply concerned about the impact the Nama controversy would have on Northern Ireland's reputation.

‘Banana republic’

“We are trying to develop an international reputation that says we are open for business, but we are developing a reputation as a place to do funny business,” he said.

“But if we have this reputation as a banana republic who is going to want to do business [here]?”

Calls for an all-Ireland investigation were supported by a number of people.

Alliance Party deputy leader Naomi Long said: "I would urge the PSNI, National Crime Agency and gardaí to co-operate on fully investigating this issue as a matter of urgency," she said.

“The stench of corruption will continue to pollute the political environment and further undermine public confidence until it is fully and transparently investigated.”

SDLP finance spokeswoman Claire Hanna, who sits on Stormont's finance committee, said "if ever there was an all-island issue this is it".

She said an independent commission of investigation “is irresistible now”.

The key issue was public confidence, she said.

“The public can’t be confident an Assembly- based inquiry won’t suffer from more political interference.”

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said the Spotlight revelations added weight to his party's call for the Irish Government to establish a commission of investigation into the selling of the Nama loan book without any further delay.

“Anything short of that amounts to the continual cover-up of the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money,” he said.

Loyalist blogger

Meanwhile, the North’s Minister for Finance, Sinn Féin’s Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, has agreed to appear as a witness before Stormont’s finance committee, which is now investigating charges that a loyalist blogger,

Jamie Bryson

, who has made a series of allegations about the Nama Project Eagle sale was coached by the former Sinn Féin chairman of the committee Daithí McKay.

Mr McKay resigned last month and was suspended from the party.

He denies the allegations of coaching, but accepts he was in contact with Mr Bryson before he appeared at the committee.