Sledgehammer Nama
Madam -- Having read a series of excellent articles in your paper, I am beginning to wonder if your correspondents Niamh Horan and Nick Webb are the only people in this country who are aware of the restrictions that Nama is imposing on developers, and consequently why our unemployment rate is static at 14.2 per cent.
It will remain so for as long as Nama is allowed to continue preventing developers from implementing sound business proposals.
The situation in which we now find ourselves was caused by greedy bankers who fought between themselves over the commissions they would receive not alone from lending billions to greedy developers in the golden circle, but from lending to themselves at preferential rates.
None of these people is in jail, and instead Nama is directly responsible for preventing smaller developers from implementing sound business recovery plans. A lot of these developers suffered from the domino effect and would be still in business today were it not for the activities of the same banks who are now calling in smaller loans, and in doing so are using Nama as a sledgehammer to crack an egg. It might come as a surprise to your readers that there are developers in this country right now who are being offered deposits for houses, and who could employ hundreds of people in the morning were they not being restricted from doing so by Nama.
There is a need for a type of Nama: a National Advice and Management Assistance body, which, in association with Richard Bruton and the IDA, would look at sound proposals from experienced developers that would put this country back on its feet.
The last thing we need now is another public enquiry, and sooner rather than later we will have one when some developer who has a solid business plan for recovery is forced to dispose of land and assets for less than half of their real value -- in most cases to a bank that is owned by the English taxpayer.
If we are to believe that every developer is responsible for the actions of a few and that all developers are to be hunted down and put out of business, then we might as well pull out the plugs, switch off the lights and close the door on this country.
Nama has already proven its ability to add to the dole queues. It must have used the 125,000 golf balls that Seanie ordered and that we all paid €208,000 to Anglo Irish Bank for, to subsidise its below-cost selling of accommodation and golf packages at its hotels. In doing so it has put family hotels and a lot of SMEs out of business.
We have not seen one criminal charge being brought for activities that would in any other country have seen those responsible locked up in jail for life within 24 hours of committing a similar offence. Since Nama is highly influenced by the banks, those who lent the money in the first place, it is time for them to be abandoned with the same rapid response this Government has shown to closing down hospital wards throughout the country.
Tom Fennelly,
Firhouse, Dublin 24
Originally published in
