PROPERTY DEVELOPER Owen O’Callaghan yesterday said he believed that Nama was the only option available to free the banks of their bad loans, although he warned it could have consequences for the Irish economy for years to come.
Mr O'Callaghan told The Irish Timesthat while he did not personally favour Nama as a remedy, he accepted that it was now the only solution to the banking crisis, given the urgent need to get credit moving again in the Irish economy.
“I don’t agree with Nama; to my mind, the banks should have been left do their own thing and mind themselves,” he said.
“I don’t believe the big two, AIB and Bank of Ireland would have failed, they would have had to get assistance from the Government in the form of a certain amount of capital, but they should have been allowed to work their own way.
“I don’t like Nama as a solution, it wouldn’t have been my choice, but I think that at this late stage it’s the only solution available . . . it’s there now and it’s done and hopefully it’s going to work. It has to work.”
The proposal by the Labour Party and others to nationalise the banks on a temporary basis would not have worked, but it would have been possible for the Government to capitalise the banks “within reason and still have them as free banks” and that would have worked, Mr O’Callaghan added.
He said that he had been impressed by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan’s command of the issue, saying that he had “grown into this completely and got to grips with it”, but he criticised the failure of the Government to consult with developers on the Nama plan.
“If we had been consulted, we could probably have contributed something, but this whole thing is between the banks and the Government – we made approaches to try and have discussions with Government, but we weren’t listened to,” he said.
The organisers of public demonstrations today in Dublin and Cork against the establishment of Nama and planned cuts in public spending are predicting a turnout in the thousands.
The United Alliance Against Cuts said its Dublin demonstration would assemble at 1pm in Parnell Square before marching through the city centre to the Dáil and then on to the headquarters of Anglo-Irish Bank.
The Cork branch of UAAC will hold a march, starting on St Patrick’s Bridge in the city at 3pm.