Noonan rejects claims politicians lobbied Nama

The National Asset Management Agency (Nama) received no representations from politicians that would be classed as lobbying, the Dáil was told as claims were made of "repeated lobbying" by a former Fine Gael TD.

AAA-PBP TD Paul Murphy claimed former Fine Gael Galway West TD Brian Walsh persistently lobbied Nama on behalf of business partners over a number of years but "inappropriately" did not disclose his relationship with them to the agency.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said, however, that "none of the representations that Nama has received from public representatives over the engagement it has had with them falls within the category of lobbying and none is in breach of the Nama Act. That is the information I have been provided with."

Citing a Sunday Times article, the Dublin South-West TD said the former deputy had written a letter to Nama on TD headed notepaper about the sale of land "which subsequently went on open market and was sold to Liam Mulryan".

The Minister said, however, that Nama was neither the owner nor the seller of the property which was managed by a receiver and was sold to the highest bidder.

Employee

The letter called on Nama to take measures to rectify the situation in a way that benefited the taxpayer, Mr Murphy said. But Mr Walsh did not mention the fact that he was previously an employee of Mr Mulryan’s.

“He doesn’t mention the fact that he owned at least six properties with Mr Mulryan. He doesn’t mention the fact that he was a director of Mr Mulryan’s companies.

“He is clearly a long-standing business associate of a guy who ends up owning this property partly as a consequence of his intervention.”

The Minister said Mr Murphy might be right about the information he had, but “there is nothing in what you have said that changes the position that Nama does not believe that anything illegal happened”.