Colum Kenny: Nama investigation will fail to get full facts

It is the sound of another stable door closing after the horse has bolted. There is to be a commission of investigation, and hearings of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC), relating to some aspects of Nama.

These fishing expeditions cannot catch the ones that got away. And past performance of unwieldy and imprecise Irish inquiries suggests they will add little of substance to what is already known. Just talking about stuff is not enough.

They will find “systemic” failures, rap a few knuckles, give deputies a chance to make points and spend a lot of time and money stating the obvious.

There is too little discipline and management in how the Dáil does business. Too many deputies have no executive experience. Some work hard on committees, but outcomes are lame.

From the outset the National Asset Management Agency (Nama) was given too much power. Critics said so but their pesky objections were brushed aside.

Nama is now the victim of its own genesis. It had a free hand precisely because the Oireachtas was too cute, scared or inept to find a better way to do business. Will deputies blame themselves?

Second-guessing Nama's past market decisions is futile. Pre-empting any Garda investigations is unwise, although the duration and outcomes of these in Ireland are themselves a problem.

A handy fix

Nama was a handy fix that let the Irish State entice in big international investors, without getting its hands dirty.

The Oireachtas has never set out clearly where the billions went from banks that it later replaced in bank vaults after the crash (at immense cost to taxpayers). That same Oireachtas let Nama loose to do as Nama saw fit. The Comptroller and Auditor General had only a limited role in overseeing its actions.

Deputies did not want to be accused of interference, or to be responsible. Now they may throw Nama under a bus and walk away.

The public has long been perturbed by how banks and Nama have disposed of certain properties whose owners went bust in the boom. It has seemed unfair at times, and appears to be a factor in the current crisis of overpriced and undersupplied city housing.

The failure to provide a means for young Irish people to buy apartments, sold en bloc at low cost either to foreign funds or certain domestic buyers, has never made financial or social sense to many citizens. Neither the Oireachtas nor Nama has explained it in a coherent or convincing way.

Another example of how the State has handled "the recovery", managing it in a way best suited to particular sectors, involves the Garda headquarters in Harcourt Square. Instead of the State acquiring this at a bargain-basement price when Nama had it, Nama sold it to a foreign fund. An already stretched Garda force found itself facing a steep rent increase or eviction.

Public money continues to go on private rentals. Why is the Oireachtas satisfied that these offer “better value” than long-term investment in State-owned buildings?

Persistence by Wallace and media

We might have had no inquiry at all into Nama's dealings in Northern Ireland ("Project Eagle") were it not for the persistence of Mick Wallace, an independent TD who is sneered at in the Dáil and who was the object of a disgraceful attempt to blacken him when he highlighted the Garda penalty points scandal.

Even his persistence might not have been enough had not a UK broadcaster become involved. Sounds familiar? The lid has been lifted too often on Irish scandals by the media instead of Dáil deputies.

Strong anti-corruption laws and an adequately resourced anti-corruption unit could do much to ensure business propriety and the best use of people’s money. But even now we have neither, a fact that itself speaks to the nature of this State.

The inquiries really worth having are those with a small number of clear aims and objectives. They need to be tightly managed, with radical remedial action guaranteed to follow quickly. It has not been thus.

Will PAC discover even what transpired between politicians north and south of the Border relative to Nama’s planned disposal of properties in Northern Ireland, and how that was conveyed to Nama?

And can a commission of investigation force players who live abroad to play ball with it?

And will the Dáil get the full story from highly paid fixers, accountants, lawyers and lobbyists involved in the process?

The Dáil will not. And insofar as the separate commission of investigation gets the story, much of what it hears may be kept private. That’s how, if at all, we investigate things in Ireland.