Government looking for a 'blank cheque' from taxpayers

OPPOSITION REACTION:FIANNA FÁIL has created the largest property company in the world and the people who are exposed to the risk are the Irish taxpayers, according to former Labour party finance minister Ruairí Quinn.

Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the Government is asking taxpayers to sign a “blank cheque”.

All Opposition parties have criticised the lack of detail in the draft Bill for the State to take over land and bad property loans from the banks, and Sinn Féin finance spokesman Arthur Morgan described the measure as the “crime of the century”.

Green Party finance spokesman Senator Dan Boyle said that Nama was “the least worst option”.

Mr Quinn said that if the legislation “provides some degree of certainty for the market, then it is to be welcomed. But it comes back to the point that they’ve chosen to go an ideological route. They set up the largest property company in the world”.

He added: “The Irish taxpayer is being exposed. On a good day we might get all our money back but we’re not going to see the kind of good days that were there in the past. It’s going to cost us and it’s just not clear that the people who created the mess are going to be held accountable.”

Asked about Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan’s promise to accept any constructive amendments, Mr Quinn said: “This is the most tribal Fianna Fáil administration led by Mr Cowen. They don’t take constructive amendments. They don’t listen. It’s ‘my way or no way’.”

Fine Gael’s support would be a matter for the front bench, Mr Bruton said.

“We will be disposed to be opposing it initially. But if we find that the Minister tacks and makes changes that are necessary to protect the taxpayer we will think again during the course of the legislation as to what final position we will take on it.”

The legislation was “a huge gamble. The Government are saying ‘trust me on this’ and I think many people feel they don’t deserve that trust”.

He said that a lot of people will wonder why the market value isn’t being the primary guideline here. And what we see, he added, is the Minister being given powers to set what he calls adjustment factors that will make the taxpayer pay a greater price than the banks and developers and courts are putting on them.

He added that the biggest doubt of all was will it get credit flowing and will it start to protect employment.

Mr Boyle said the Greens “looked over several of the options, all of which are unpalatable and we’ve come to the conclusion that Nama is the least worst of the options that are available. It does the work we believe it needs to do in removing toxic debt from the financial institutions, helping them to become more liquid and lend money out again and puts the assets from those loans into a situation where they can achieve a value that will recoup the taxpayers’ investment”.

Mr Morgan noted that “every euro of the €10 billion already pumped into Anglo, AIB and Bank of Ireland on top of the astronomical cost of Nama is a euro being taken out of vital public services such as education, health, job creation and the delivery of critical infrastructure. And the weight of debt on future generations is as yet immeasurable”.