Were it not for John Mooney at the Sunday Times in August 2012, we may never have heard of Sundays Well in Lucan, the property subject to a NAMA loan which was sold by a NAMA developer Thomas Dowd to a NAMA employee, Enda Farrell and his wife Alice Kramer (Alison Kramer). The property called Sundays Well in Lucan was sold for €410,000 in November 2011 to Enda while he was still an employee of NAMA.
And four months later, we remain in the dark about what valuation, if any, was undertaken by NAMA or the developer before the property was sold. The subject was covered in some detail here last week.
If NAMA had an independent valuation undertaken, then you would expect NAMA to have paid someone for that valuation – after all, auctioneers and valuers don’t provide their expertise, and expose themselves to professional indemnity claims, for free – they charge for valuations, especially if those valuations are “independent”.
Yesterday in the Dail, the Sinn Fein finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to confirm what, if anything, NAMA had paid for the independent valuation. The response was “get lost – that subject is closed”.
Here is the full parliamentary question and response
Deputy Pearse Doherty further to Parliamentary Question No. 139 of 11 December 2012, if he will confirm the fees paid by the National Assets Management Agency or its debtor for the provision of an independent valuation or independent valuations in the case of the sale of the property (details supplied).
Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan: As advised in my response to your Parliamentary Question of 11th December 2012 (55389/12), I do not intend to go beyond the extensive information that NAMA, based on legal advice, has already made publicly available in respect of this transaction.
Appalling. I hope there’s a special place in hell where Department of Finance Officials have to answer FOI’s for eternity, cattle-prodded by young Doherty!
How many Anglo, EBS, INBS or AIB properties have been bought by Anglo, EBS, INBS or AIB staff since their nationalisation? No wonder so many staff in NAMA are like rats leaving a sinking ship. From what I’ve heard it is an impossible job with the worst conditions/treatment. Plus they are now unemployable, but by all accounts they have done a good job so far.
Is Pearse Doherty the only guy holding Noonan to account? It is amazing that he is constantly stone-walled by him, not a sausage of an answer. It is beyond disgraceful that this continues and the likes of Enda et al talk about political reform out the other side of their mouth. As the Pixies once sung, ‘I’m amazed.’