Email Your TD on NAMA (Feedback)

[libertarian-right]

Dear all,

For people who are concerned about NAMA, I call on you all to voice your concerns. I would call upon to ask these questions (Brian Lucey)

1. What evidence does NAMA have that the current market price of these
is not in fact going to decline for a number of years, as would be the
case if Ireland were to follow the common experience of previous
property crashes?

2. Why would a temporary nationalisation of the banks be a bad thing,
given that this would provide the taxpayer with a valuable asset which
could be sold in future years?

3. Why does no independent analyst support the governments view on
NAMA? This includes the Swedish finance minister who ran their bad
bank system, who said to the Irish Times that he “favours the more
severe mark-to-market write-down of assets rather than a ‘through the
cycle’ valuation.”, and that “it (NAMA) does not sound like the right
solution to buy assets from private banks.” It also includes the IMF
who said " Insolvent institutions (with insufficient cash flows)
should be closed, merged, or temporarily placed in public ownership
until private sector solutions can be developed ... there have been
numerous instances (for example, Japan, Sweden and the United States),
where a period of public ownership has been used to cleanse balance
sheets and pave the way to sales back to the private sector", in the
context of saying that the likely losses for Irish banks were such as
to render them insolvent.

4. Why not force the equity and bond holders in Irish banks to take
the first place in the queue to absorb the losses that the banks would
have to book were current market prices to be paid for the loans made.
After all, that’s what risk capital is for?

5. If the state overpays for the loans relative to current market
prices, what, apart from a functioning banking system, does the
taxpayer gain?

6. What percentage of book value of the loans should NAMA pay, given
that current market prices for land and development properties are
somewhere around 30% or less of book value?

7. If NAMA were to pay say €60b for loans that are worth only €30b,
how can this transfer of a full years tax revenue to private
speculators be justified in this economic time?

8. If, as is entirely possible, the loans transferred to NAMA do not
provide sufficient income to meet the coupon payments of the bonds
issues by NAMA, will the taxpayer, at least in the short term, not
have to meet these payments?

I will show any feedback I get.

[libertarian-right]

Thank you for your e-mail regarding NAMA.
Fine Gael will oppose the NAMA legislation published by Government as currently drafted, because it is a request for a €90 billion blank cheque to gamble our children's future by buying toxic developer loans from banks at inflated, sweetheart prices, and because this approach will not generate the immediate improvement in credit conditions that our small business sector desperately needs.
We believe that there is a better way. If restoring credit flows is the prime objective of banking policy, taxpayer investment in a new, State-owned bank with a clean balance sheet and an appetite to lend, such as Fine Gael’s proposed National Recovery Bank, would be far more likely to succeed at a fraction of the risk. Future losses by the banks should be absorbed first and foremost by their investors and bond-holders, not by the Irish taxpayer

Regards
Denis Naughten TD

[libertarian-right]

*****

Thank you for your e-mail, the contents I have noted with interest. I will forward your concerns to Minister Brian Lenihan T.D. and ask them to intervene on the matter. As soon as I have a reply I will be back in touch.

Yours truly

JOHN BROWNE T.D.
Wexford

[DCon]

Dear all,

For people who are concerned about NAMA, I call on you all to voice your concerns. I would call upon to ask these questions (Brian Lucey)

1. What evidence does NAMA have that the current market price of these
is not in fact going to decline for a number of years, as would be the
case if Ireland were to follow the common experience of previous
property crashes?

2. Why would a temporary nationalisation of the banks be a bad thing,
given that this would provide the taxpayer with a valuable asset which
could be sold in future years?

3. Why does no independent analyst support the governments view on
NAMA? This includes the Swedish finance minister who ran their bad
bank system, who said to the Irish Times that he “favours the more
severe mark-to-market write-down of assets rather than a ‘through the
cycle’ valuation.”, and that “it (NAMA) does not sound like the right
solution to buy assets from private banks.” It also includes the IMF
who said " Insolvent institutions (with insufficient cash flows)
should be closed, merged, or temporarily placed in public ownership
until private sector solutions can be developed ... there have been
numerous instances (for example, Japan, Sweden and the United States),
where a period of public ownership has been used to cleanse balance
sheets and pave the way to sales back to the private sector", in the
context of saying that the likely losses for Irish banks were such as
to render them insolvent.

4. Why not force the equity and bond holders in Irish banks to take
the first place in the queue to absorb the losses that the banks would
have to book were current market prices to be paid for the loans made.
After all, that’s what risk capital is for?

5. If the state overpays for the loans relative to current market
prices, what, apart from a functioning banking system, does the
taxpayer gain?

6. What percentage of book value of the loans should NAMA pay, given
that current market prices for land and development properties are
somewhere around 30% or less of book value?

7. If NAMA were to pay say €60b for loans that are worth only €30b,
how can this transfer of a full years tax revenue to private
speculators be justified in this economic time?

8. If, as is entirely possible, the loans transferred to NAMA do not
provide sufficient income to meet the coupon payments of the bonds
issues by NAMA, will the taxpayer, at least in the short term, not
have to meet these payments?

I will show any feedback I get.

I got a lot of non-government party feedback yesterday. had my first this morning from a Fianna Failer:

Thank you for your e-mail, the contents I have noted with interest. I will forward your concerns to Minister Brian Lenihan T.D. and ask them to intervene on the matter. As soon as I have a reply I will be back in touch.


Yours truly


JOHN BROWNE T.D.
Wexford

I am not sure how Brian Lenihan T.D. is a "them" unless FF are cloning the Special One.

[greengoose2]

I got a lot of non-government party feedback yesterday. had my first this morning from a Fianna Failer:

Thank you for your e-mail, the contents I have noted with interest. I will forward your concerns to Minister Brian Lenihan T.D. and ask them to intervene on the matter. As soon as I have a reply I will be back in touch.


Yours truly


JOHN BROWNE T.D.
Wexford

I am not sure how Brian Lenihan T.D. is a "them" unless FF are cloning the Special One.

Them is obviously copy/paste from another form letter. I love the buck passing.

I doubt if the OP will get much reaction to his email.

[libertarian-right]

Dear Constituent,


I share your scepticism about the NAMA proposals. Our central concern with NAMA has always been that taxpayers will be asked to pay too much to the banks for their toxic developer loans. That concern has not been eased by the publication of the draft NAMA legislation. The Bill provides a very elastic concept of ‘long-term value’ as the basis for valuing the impaired bank loans, and gives the Minister very substantial powers as to how this will be estimated.

It is, in essence, a request for an enormous blank cheque to buy property at inflated prices by the very Government that, until recently, were telling us that the property bubble was based on sound economic fundamentals.

Furthermore, there is no guarantee that this huge gamble will result in a resumption of normal credit flows to struggling Irish businesses. Irish banks will remain poorly capitalised and concern will turn to new categories of non-performing loans.

We have never supported this approach and have outlined an alternative based on the following:

1. Establishing a National Recovery Bank which would be a state wholesale bank capable of getting credit flowing immediately using the existing banks as agents. It would use a small amount of State equity (€2 Billion) and use the ECB as a source of funding. (The French and the Danes have set up a similar institution with ECB backing)
2. Requiring the banks to use the remaining 13 months of the state guarantee to repair their own balance sheets by selling assets, attracting more deposits and renegotiating their own debts to international bond markets. If they fail in the process, they would then be nationalised and broken up into "good" and "bad banks", with the toxic developer loans remaining with the private investors that funded them.

I can assure you that we shall put the Government proposals under the most severe scrutiny in order to protect the state from this hazardous venture.

Michael Creed T.D.
Fine Gael Spokesperson for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food.

[libertarian-right]

****,

I am totally opposed to the Nama concept. I believe we need a General Election urgently so the people can have their say.

Yours Sincerely,

Thomas P. Broughan T.D.

Labour T.D. for Dublin North East and Spokesperson on Transport

[DCon]

Thank you very much for your E Mail.

The fears you express about NAMA are shared by many of us in the Dail, and
Fine Gael are already committed to opposing the legislation which we
consider to be the biggest financial gamble in the history of the state.

The first draft of the legislation raises more questions than it answers.

I can assure you Fine Gael will raise all the issues to which you refer and
make every effort we can to rescue the situation from this appalling
Government.

We need a General Election and a change of Government, otherwise the
present administration will continue to run the country into the ground in
the interest of their cronies.

Yours sincerely,
MICHAEL NOONAN, T.D.

[muck_savage]

We need a General Election and a change of Government, otherwise the present administration will continue to run the country into the ground in the interest of their cronies.

That's about the height of it, really.

[DCon]

Thank you very much for your email and for your comments on NAMA which I was very interested to receive. I will also forward a copy to our policy team. In the meantime you may be interested in the following statement issued by the Labour Party following the publication of the NAMA Bill outlining our position.

Best wishes

Eamon Gilmore TD
Labour Party Leader



STATEMENT BY RUAIRI QUINN TD

Labour Party Spokesperson on Education
Thursday, 30 July, 2009

NAMA BILL: PLENTY OF SAFEGUARDS FOR DEVELOPERS - SCANT PROTECTION FOR TAXPAYERS


“My initial reaction on reading the draft NAMA Bill is that Fianna Fail is proposing to establish the biggest property company in the world and asking taxpayers to foot the bill and bear all the risk.

“This Bill will be one of the most important pieces of legislation ever to have come before Dáil Eireann. There will be enormous consequences for the taxpayer if the government get it wrong. It is a hugely complex Bill that will require careful study and the Labour Party will examine it in a responsible way. We will issue our detailed response in due course.

“Since the economic and banking crises arose, the Labour Party response has been driven by three crucial objectives – the need to sustain the real economy; to protect jobs and to defend the taxpayer's from the consequences of Fianna Fail’s mishandling of the banking crisis.

“Labour has never accepted that NAMA on its own was the best way in which to deal with the crisis. There are many independent commentators and economists who share our view. We believe that temporary nationalisation of the institutions covered by the bank guarantee would be the quickest, most effective and least costly means of dealing with the appalling situation in which the country now finds itself. There are plenty of safeguards in the draft Bill for banks and the developers but scant protection for the interests of the taxpayer.

“The key element missing from the draft Bill is a precise figure on how losses on loans, many of which relate to property developments abroad, are to be apportioned between the taxpayers and the banks. The valuation procedure set out in Section 58 is hopelessly vague. It refers to the long term economic value of the property, but gives no indication as to how this is to be estimated. In other words, the government is asking the taxpayer to take a speculative gamble on what properties may be worth in the future. This is an approach which poses an enormous risk for the taxpayer.

“I am concerned that no limit is placed on the type of properties to be acquired and no limit placed on the value of the assets to be taken over. Despite a figure of €90 billion having been bandied about, there is nothing in the Bill to prevent it from going even higher.

“Knowing Fianna Fail’s record and their determination to favour the banks and developers at every opportunity, we have no confidence in the willingness or capacity of this government to protect the interests of the taxpayers.”

ENDS

CONTACT RUAIRI QUINN @ 087-2621946

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