It is one of the paradoxes of NAMA that politicians in the State are forbidden from lobbying the agency and yet across the border, NAMA has set up a Northern Ireland advisory committee which has close links with the Northern Ireland government. Double standards and an uneven playing field? Perhaps.
But that doesn’t stop the amusement to be had in observing politicians here expressing views on NAMA but clipping them so that they don’t veer towards the characterisation of lobbying. It has indeed been amusing to watch Willie O’Dea and Mary Hanafin twist and turn in trying to express their views on property that will be controlled by NAMA – in Mary Hanafin’s case it is still unclear whether she had her much trumpeted meeting with NAMA to try to resolve the problems of zombie hotels and threats to “long established family hotels”.
The Sunday Business Post yesterday reported that a report has been prepared by the government though it is unclear if it was in fact prepared by the Irish Hotels Federation and Failte Ireland, Anyway it seems it is being branded as a Mary Hanafin Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport report. The Tribune say that it will help NAMA in the disposal of property.
NAMA of course is a private agency, 51% owned by private investors and NAMA’s objectives are selfishly narrow in that NAMA is to focus on getting a return for the taxpayer (and implicitly, to blazes with any wider economy considerations that conflict with the narrower objectives). It will be interesting to see if NAMA pay any heed to recommendations of this as yet unpublished report.
NAMA Wine Lake 