BBC Northern Ireland will be screening a special on NAMA tomorrow, Tuesday evening at 10:35pm on BBC One (Northern Ireland only) – programme details from the BBC are here. There will be a repeat on BBC Two (Northern Ireland) on Wednesday evening at 11.20pm. It’s part of the Spotlight series which has a history of exposing untoward behaviour – who will forget the programme on the wife of the First Minister, Peter Robinson two years ago.
Tomorrow’s 30-minute programme will be presented by the BBC Northern Ireland Economics Editor, Jim Fitzpatrick and will include an interview with the NAMA chairman Frank Daly which will be the first broadcast feature interview with NAMA on Northern Irish matters. There will also be a contribution from the Northern Ireland Minister of Finance and Personnel, Sammy Wilson who in August 2011 called for a “full” Northern Irish representative on the NAMA board; he is also impatient at perceived delays at NAMA in progressing its asset management phase. Of course it was last month that NAMA lost its first director, Peter Stewart who was widely seen as the Northern Irish representative on the NAMA board. NAMA has a sensitive role in the small Northern Irish economy where there are concerns at the consequences of fire sales and the hoarding of property.
Tomorrow’s programme is also expected to deal with Northern Ireland’s property crash which is amongst the world’s worst and certainly appears to have been worse than the Republic’s. And there will be a visit to a so-called “NAMAtown” in County Down where a cluster of property is understood to be under the control of the Agency.
The programme will be of interest across Ireland – Sammy Wilson has more freedom to express his views than Government ministers on this side of the Border, and we should get a clearer idea of what NAMA will mean down here.
There will be a review of the programme here later in the week.
UPDATE: 28th November 2011. Having at last managed to watch the Spotlight special on NAMA , this is a quick review. The programme itself was as much about the collapse in property prices in Northern Ireland, as about the interference of the “Dublin government’s” NAMA in the small Northern Ireland economy. Four instances were shown to evidence the price declines, a 1-acre site which at the peak in 2006/7 sold for GBP 1.7m but was bought in September 2011 at auction for GBP 94,000; an upmarket 5-bedroom house “Molesworth” in Dromore, County Down which has seen its asking price reduced from GBP 950,000 to less than GBP 500,00 and some NAMA mansions formerly owned by Dromore developer, Sam Thompson of Thompson Developments – one reduced from GBP 1.2m to “less than a third of that” and another originally for sale at GBP 1.35m but now asking GBP 595,000. Yes indeed, residential property prices in Northern Ireland have declined by as much, and probably more, than residential property in the Republic. Michael Moore of Queens University opined that prices may not return to their 2007 peaks in “this lifetime”
Elsewhere negative equity was on display in a case study of a man who now owed GBP 60,000 on his home on top of the existing value of the home, and he had lost his job and now faced losing his home in a couple of months and possibly being pursued for the GBP 60,000 shortfall. The programme claimed that 44,000 households in Northern Ireland (out of a total of 700,000 households approximately) are in negative equity – that compares with 200-400,000 out of 1.7m in the Republic.
And so to NAMA. NAMA chairman Frank Daly gave a brief interview in which he articulated the well-rehearsed line about NAMA not forcing hoarding or fire sales in Northern Ireland and would undertake to engage constructively with local developers and businesses. Specifically Frank rejected a suggestion that NAMA does not engage with developers – he was responding to criticism that NAMA had put the kibosh on a bid by a new business in Dromore to acquire a NAMA property which was part of an overall site.
The Northern Ireland Minister of Finance and Personnel, the sometimes bohemian Sammy Wilson, had two main items on his agenda, a “full representative” on the NAMA board – he’s been calling for this since August 2011 which was two months before “full representative” Peter Stewart resigned from the NAMA board and Peter Stewart was seen to be representing Northern Ireland’s interests ; secondly he wanted to ensure that NAMA did not undermine the local economy in Northern Ireland where property was oftentimes acquired as an ancillary investment by established businesses, businesses which are now threatened by NAMA should NAMA call in the loans.
Interestingly “debt negotiator” Conor Devine made a contribution and there were forecasts of widespread foreclosure activity in the “new year”. Conor raised the issue of family businesses established for decades facing an uncertain future after a foray into property and the subsequent collapse in values.
Overall it was a light low-budget programme which portrayed the extent of the residential property collapse (commercial was largely ignored) and which gave a broad overview of NAMA and brought Sammy Wilson and Frank Daly together in one programme to explore the issues facing the property collapse in the small Northern Ireland economy. Th theme of the needs of the Republi’s taxpayer versus those of our neighbours in the North inevitably arose throughout.There wasn’t much that was new but it brought people up to speed with what NAMA was doing.
The programme will be available on the BBC iPlayer until tomorrow here. If you have a computer based outside the UK you might need convince the BBC that you have a UK computer and you might use a proxy masking service like ExpatShield.
“NAMAtown” Whatt? Oh! mother of god, have we moved on from mere “ghost estates”? To the full Monty!
Tune in as Sammy Wilson of the DUP gives us “a clearer idea of what NAMA will mean down here” and drops another nugget from the upcoming budget.
I’m guessing ‘Namatown’ will be Dromore. Population under 5000 and 20 sites on the Nama foreclosed list. It’s possible others are also under their control.
Full NI representation on the NAMA board? How would that benefit the Republic?
Sorry to sound selfish but we’ve to worry about ourselves.
“there is no such thing as a free lunch”
What makes a good neighbor………
@rob thet are keeping an eye on their collateral.
“Ireland is our closest neighbour. And it’s in Britain’s national interest that the Irish economy is successful and we have a stable banking system,” he said. “Britain stands ready to support Ireland.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8139354/UK-pledges-7bn-to-help-bail-Ireland-out-of-debt-crisis.html
Can be viewed here (in the UK anyway) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017j2g3/Spotlight_22_11_2011/
Thanks JP, non-UK viewers might want to use a proxy masking piece of software which will fool the BBC and others into thinking that your computer is in the UK. This is the website for one such free piece of software
http://expatshield.com/
@NWL thank you for that,not sure if this was posted but some people may want to watch this.
http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/
Sammy Wilson wants to remain part of the UK but he also wants the benefits of the Republics travesty that is NAMA? Unionists; getting their own way since 1609.
@John, there are quite a few people on this side of the Border that would like to see NAMA get a move-on with agreeing business plans, or take appropriate foreclosure action, and we’d also like to see NAMA stop acting as a distortion to the property market with hoarding (and potentially with fire sales). As far as I can see, Sammy Wilson is fighting his corner for the NI economy as a whole, and for property businesses regardless of the affiliations of their owners.
The extent of the use of an existing non property business as collateral to get into the property game, 300 family businesses at risk was the figure mentioned by Jim Fitzpatrick during the programme, shows the degree which property activities polluted the whole economy.
In an economy where there is precious little local private sector economic activity, this figure is incredible.
On Tuesday last E & Y issued their most recent Economic Eye Report, http://ey.mobi/Publication/vwLUAssets/Economic_Eye_winter_forecast/$FILE/Economic%20Eye%20winter%20report.pdf.
This report paints a poor enough picture for this side of the Border, however the position in the North is really grim. Additional UK Government cuts to bring their economy into line would leave the North spinning further into decline.
@Niall it was more a form of “madness” may as well have been “tulips” from afar,it was very bewildering to watch.
“Charles Mackay’s famous book, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”, is perhaps the most often cited in discussions of market phenomena, from the tulipmania in 17th-century Holland to most every bubble since. The story is a familiar one: an enduring bull market in some commodity, currency or equity leads the general public to believe the trend cannot end. Such optimistic thinking leads the public to overextend itself in acquiring the object of the mania, while lenders fall over each other to feed the fire. Eventually, fear arises in investors as they start to think that the market is not as strong as they initially assumed. Inevitably, the market collapses on itself as that fear turns to panic selling, creating a vicious spiral that brings the market to a point lower than it was before the mania started, and from which it will likely take years to recover”
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/04/011404.asp#axzz1edDxc7FO
Something which bears further examination is the fact that Nama is almost sure to come into commercial competition with the NI Executive.
Why so? Well the Exec is committed to raising £500m through asset disposals (ie. Land and property sales) in its present four year budget period. It will obviously be fishing in the same pool as Nama.
As an example the Dept of Agriculture is committed to leaving the Dundonald House office block and moving out of Belfast. That block is near the end of its useful life so the site will be sold for housing. Yet about a mile up the road Nama have (in administration) the Millmount site which they are going to sell with pp for about 600 houses.
@ JP I think your point is very well made.
The economic conditions in the North look particularly weak (see my earlier post for a link to the recent E & Y Economic Report).
Additional cutbacks in the subvention from the UK Treasury will make such disposals an even greater imperative, yet market conditions will make that well nigh impossible at anything other than giveaway prices.
The question must be crossing the minds of NAMA’s management as to whether it is time to just dump everything they have in the North. There is also likely to be fire sales by private speculators from the South, who crossed the border looking for bargains.
While the population numbers are currently reasonably stable, economic cutbacks is likely to see substantial net emigration particularly from the more prosperous areas around Belfast.
With little or no private sector or commercial State sector, the position looks particularly bleak.
@Niall, I think we’ll all be interested to hear what George Osborne has to say about the UK’s regional economies when he makes his much-anticipated Autumn Statement at 12.30 today.
Meanwhile you might be interested in a statistical release from Sammy Wilson’s Department of Finance and Personnel this morning which analyses population and household changes in Northern Ireland
@ NWL I had been looking at the figures recently for a project to which I have been asked to contribute , the NISRA site provides a range of figures via spreadsheets http://www.nisra.gov.uk/ .
Sammy might not be so happy with the figures therein, which suggest that almost all population growth is in nationalist/republican areas. They also have a large number of births to foreigners, similar to this side of the border, which may explain the number of incidents involving attacks on East Europeans and others in various NI locations.
However I remain very skeptical about the Northern economy. The high dependence on social programmes together with the number of northern contractors who were working this side of the border will be lethal in the long-term. For example, they are finally taking action on the huge surplus of school places, which will lead to many less teachers employed. The economic “peace dividend” is over and at just the wrong time. Financial supports are being cut just as they are needed.
It seems to me that substantial ongoing net emigration is likely in the medium term. Much of the population growth was in areas on or close to the border, where available work was serving commercial requirements on this side of the line.
This will reduce demand for housing and will also knock on to commercial property. Belfast may be an administrative capital, but in reality it is more likely to become similar to a second tier English city, say a Derby or Ipswich than an Edinburgh or Cardiff.