Madam, - Dr Mait Ó Faoláin (Letters, July 28th) is factually incorrect in his statements regarding the performance of the National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF).
He compares the NPRF's return of -12 per cent in the first six months of 2008 with the full-year 2007 performance of Norway's Pension Fund - Global.
For a fair comparison the same time period should be used for both funds and on that basis the NPRF returned 3.3 per cent in 2007, compared with the Norwegian fund's 4.3 per cent.
By way of further comparison, the NPRF returned 12.4 per cent in 2006 and 19.6 per cent in 2005. The Norwegian fund's returns in those years were 7.9 per cent and 11.1 per cent respectively.
Dr Ó Faoláin also alleges an overreliance by the NPRF on domestic equity investments.
However, while the NPRF has around 4 per cent invested in Ireland, Irish-quoted equities account for some 1 per cent of its portfolio, broadly in line with the Irish market's weighting in international indices. - Yours, etc,
BRIAN O'NEILL, National Treasury Management Agency, Treasury Building, Dublin 2.