Controversial £7m in Nama Northern investigation should go back to Cerberus - SF

The £7 million (€9.6m) sum that has attracted considerable controversy in the Stormont inquiry into the sale of Nama's assets in the North should be returned to US investment firm, Cerberus, according to Sinn Féin.

Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, a Sinn Féin member of the Stormont committee for finance and personnel, said he believed the £7 million should go back to the US firm, which succeeded last year in buying Nama's Northern loans portfolio for an estimated £1.2 billion. It should not be returned to Tughans, the Belfast law firm that is at the centre of several investigations relating to the deal, Mr Ó Muilleoirsaid.

The £7 million is currently held in a bank account controlled by the Law Society of Northern Ireland.

Tughans and its former managing partner, Ian Coulter, both played a role in the Nama deal with Cerberus and, as a result, have been caught in the spotlight following allegations made in the Dáil by Independent TD Mick Wallace. Mr Wallace alleged that £7 million had been lodged in an offshore bank account from the Nama transaction with Cerberus and that this money had been earmarked for a Northern Ireland politician or a certain party.

Tughans has previously claimed it alerted the Law Society to the account while Mr Coulter has asserted that he personally informed the law firm about the account. It had been The Law Society is conducting what it describes as an “in-depth and vigorous investigation” concerning the circumstances of Mr Coulter’s departure from Tughans.

The Stormont inquiry into the Nama sale was on Thursday scheduled to question representatives from the Law Society on exactly what they knew about matters relating to the whole Nama affair.

But the latest session of its inquiry shed far less light on the subject than politicians might have hoped.

National Crime Agency

The president of the Law Society, Arleen Elliott, told the committee that the group had been warned by a senior officer leading the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) investigation into the Nama sale not to answer any questions that could relate to its investigation.

Ms Elliott said the Law Society was co-operating with the NCA and as a result could not provide substantive evidence to many of the questions posed at the inquiry.

Many of the Stormont committee members expressed frustration with the situation today, including Mr Ó Muilleoir who said it was “silly” for the NCA to be in the position of making phone calls to the Law Society minutes before it was due to give evidence.