Cushnahan may face State ethics watchdog over Project Eagle deal

Nama may refer former advisory committee member Frank Cushnahan to the State's ethics watchdog as a result of the controversy over its €1.6 billion Project Eagle deal.

Mr Cushnahan resigned from the agency's Northern Ireland Advisory Committee in November 2013, but Nama subsequently discovered the following March that he was seeking a £5 million fee for advising Pimco, which was bidding for Project Eagle, a portfolio of property loans to borrowers, many in the North.

Shareholding

Nama’s chairman,

Frank Daly

, wrote to Mr Cushnahan last month asking him about his meeting with Pimco in May 2013, while he was still a member of the agency’s committee, to discuss a sale of its loans, and questioning him about his shareholding in one of its debtors, the

Graham Group

.

The agency may refer Mr Cushnahan to the Standards in Public Office Commission for failing to tell it about the Pimco meeting and Graham Group shareholding. Advisory committee members were obliged to disclose their investments and other interests every year and to inform meetings of any involvement that they may have had with any issue up for discussion.

Members debated Pimco’s interest in buying the Northern Ireland loans at an advisory committee meeting in October 2013. The records show that neither Mr Cushnahan nor anyone else who was there declared any interest in any issue raised that day.

Mr Daly asks why Mr Robinson told a Stormont committee investigating the deal that he believed either Mr Cushnahan or solicitor Ian Coulter organised the May 2013 meeting with Pimco.

“I would also invite you to provide details of any other meetings you had with Pimco or other parties relating to the possible sale of Nama’s Northern Ireland loan portfolio and details of your relationship with Pimco or any other bidder in this respect,” his letter says.

Mr Daly also invites Mr Cushnahan to explain how he determined that he was not required to disclose this information under both the Nama and ethics in public office legislation. He also asks why Mr Cushnahan did not disclose details of his shares in the Graham group in the annual statement of interests or at any advisory committee meeting.

Bookmaking business

Mr Cushnahan had been chairman of the Graham family’s bookmaking business and held 5 per cent of Gareth Graham’s four property companies, whose loans Nama took over in 2010. Mr Cushnahan’s lawyers have said that he cut all ties with the Graham group before he joined the Nama committee, but Mr Graham maintains that he still owns 5 per cent of the business.