O’Reilly says €2bn of loans from banks will be fully repaid

The property developer Joe O’Reilly expects his personal and group loans of more than €2 billion to be sold by the National Assets Management Agency for a multiple of what the agency paid for them.

Mr O'Reilly, best known for being the man behind the Dundrum Town Centre, appeared before the Oireachtas Inquiry into the Banking Crisis this evening.

Mr O’Reilly told the inquiry he had personal and corporate loans totalling approximately €2 billion from the guaranteed banks in September 2008 and that he believed all of this money would be repaid.

He said he expected the principal of his personal and corporate loans to be fully repaid after they are sold as part of Nama’s so called project jewel sale, currently underway.

Mr O’Reilly, the founder of the Castlethorn group, of which he is one of three shareholders, and of Chartered Land, which he owns, said the groups’ loans were moved to Nama in 2010 and his businesses worked hard with the agency to maximise the value of the assets.

Mr O'Reilly was the developer behind the Dundrum Town Centre, for which he is best known. He also had a hand in the Pavilions Shopping Centre in Swords, as well as the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre and its adjoining office blocks in Dublin's docklands.

He was one of the biggest borrowers whose loans moved in the first wave of transfers to State assets agency Nama, after it was set up in the wake of the financial crisis.

Mr O'Reilly was one of the 'Maple 10' investors who were given loans to buy shares in Anglo Irish Bank in 2008.

When he gave evidence in the trial of three former Anglo Irish Bank executives last year, he described himself as a “developer, builder” and when asked if he had been a billionaire in 2008 he answered that it was “hard to tell”.