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NAMA HAS COME out strongly against a number of claims made against it saying misinformation has been released as part of an “organised campaign to discredit” the agency.
NAMA CEO Brendan McDonagh and chairman Frank Daly were both appearing before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee this morning following allegations of illegality at the state’s bad bank.
In a pointed defence to the claims, McDonagh said that NAMA has not itself been provided with the allegations and has only learned about them through the media.
Despite this, McDonagh said this morning that, from what the agency understands of the claims, they are “satisfied that they are unfounded”.
McDonagh address two specific allegations that have been aired by the media and in the Dáil during the week.
The first allegation was a claim by former NAMA employee Enda Farrell that he leaked a ‘full file’ of personal information on property developer Paddy McKillen to a third-party.
McDonagh said that, not only did this claim contradict previous sworn statements by Farrell, but that a review taken over the last 36 hours shows that there was no electronic communications between Farrell and the third-party.
Furthermore, McDonagh said that NAMA holds “very little” information on McKillen because they did not acquire his loads:
NAMA has never possessed this information in relation to Mr. McKillen because, as the Committee will be aware, the NAMA Board took a decision in July 2011 not to acquire Mr McKillen’s loans. Such information is usually provided as part of a debtor’s business plan submission and in this case, as we did not acquire the loans, no business plan was submitted.
NAMA’S Frank Daly says people are trying to discredit NAMA for their own ends. (Pic: Oireachtas/ Screengrab)
Valuations
The second allegation addressed during the committee session was that a claim that NAMA had deliberately manipulated the valuation of property which was collateral for its acquired loans.
“NAMA utterly refutes this allegation,” said McDonagh.
He outlined the property valuation process which he says first involves the relevant financial institution appointing an independent valuer. NAMA then appoint their own valuer which reviews the first valuation, in 88 per cent of cases the NAMA panel accepted the original valuation said McDonagh
In the 12 per cent of cases where there is a difference between the two valuations, a third valuer is appointed and their valuation is accepted.
NAMA’s chairman Frank Daly outlined what he felt was “an organised campaign to hinder effectiveness of NAMA and influence its decisions” but said that NAMA “would not be distracted” from its goals.
“We seem to to be one of the few people in Dublin who aren’t in possession of this allegations,” he added.
Daly said that the agency “does not believe everything our debtors tell us” and questioned the credence that the media and certain politicians have given to the allegations.
McDonagh echoed this claim that people are seeking to harm NAMA for their own ends:
Some will intend to discredit NAMA for their own purpose under theory that if enough mud is thrown some of it will stick. Unfortunately, in every walk of life there are bad eggs but in our case thankfully they have been very few.
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best 2 word advice for any internet user:
Adblock plus
Agreed – haven’t seen a Facebook or YouTube ad in months.
What would you recommend to block ads on an Android device? (Sorry for using you for tech support but you seem to know what you’re at!)
Hey Clodagh,
Don’t tend to use it myself on Android, however you can get an Android build of AdBlock Plus:
https://adblockplus.org/en/android-install
Only thing you need to do first is (as it says on the page) Go to settings and allow installations from “Unknown Sources”. (Maybe switch that off again after the installation).
:)
adblock is available there too…..
i stopped using the independent.ie App a few months ago when they introduced auto-play video ads as soon as you opened the app. herself was a bit p’d off in bed at night when I opened it up only for it to randomly play video ads.
i don’t want to stop using the facebook app though. hopefully it definately wont auto play sound
Please don’t just tell people to indiscriminately use adblock. It is killing an awful lot of online business, Game and news websites rely massively advertising revenues to support them, if you like a website and use adblock then for the love of god make sure you whitelist them.
I agree with you ciaran, I you love a website that has non intrusive ads like banners or clickable pictures don’t block them.
But Facebook is taking it far now, intrusive ads that auto play without your consent is suicide.
I’ll be deleting my profile if it comes to fruition.
Yeah What I was saying wasn’t in defence of autoplay video adds but a large number of sites are seeing more than half their traffic come in with adblock which means they get no revenue from it. This is not as minor an issue as the large amount of red thumbs on my original comment would seem to suggest that people think it is.
I use adblock myself but if I like a website I whitelist them otherwise I’m effectively stealing their content. Thankfully I don’t have facebook so this particular development is not an issue for for me.
Certainly if it happens wide scale and people wish to continue using Facebook for whatever reason they should install adblock, all I’m saying is not to forget to then whitelist those other smaller sites that you like, ones with writers who rely on the ad revenue your traffic generates to survive.
Root it and download adaway adblocker. You can’t get it from the play store so Google it and manually install
Need to be rooted, so that Adaway can update your hosts file. Unfortunately the average user might find it tricky
Now this could be the tipping point for me
Yup. Been humming and hawing about deleting my count for ages now. Facebook is more an annoyance than a joy these days, think ill just go back to the old fashioned way of texting and calling to keep in contact!
I reckon it’s time we all left Facebook
Stop talking about it and just do it.
Back to Bebo!! :)
I finally deleted my account last week. Got so annoyed finding myself clicking into it countless times a day to see the same shite day in day out. Good riddance I say. Now, how to control my journal usage?!
I can’t I just can’t it. Also do you know wats worse? The new login with Facebook to other websites. It’s too easy dammit. We should set up our own one and call it “AboutFace”
Facebook has become a poor shadow of its original self. It was fun in 2007 but it’s now becoming a giant evil corporate monster. Google is the same, I don’t want Google+, I don’t want YouTube linked to my personal email and I don’t want my web searches linked to any of them.
Agreed, Google are getting more and more evil day by day
What about people who have a low data packages on their mobile, surely constantly playing videos every time their on Facebook will eat into that. Might push more users away than they think.
You obviously didn’t read the full article.
There must be some way of injecting advertisements directly into the human brain.
A German company has created a way to beam ads into your brain (via TheJournal.ie) http://www.thejournal.ie/talking-window-bone-conduction-ad-979624-Jul2013/
Ads should be optional viewing in the background. If you can switch them off its goodnight Dick!
Can’t. That’s important…
Facebook have a “lock-in” element to their business model.
It’s still probably the most convenient way to keep in contact with friends when they’re halfway around the world. And they depend on revenue so it’s not surprising that it has become littered with ads – making them optional means that you are getting a service without any commitment and advertisers wouldn’t like that. Use adblock and you see very little or even none of it. 3rd party software will always be available to do this kind of thing.
I left my main Facebook account nearly 2 years ago. I dont miss it one bit. This is for commenting here and 5 close friends.
You’re still on Facebook though.
I’m not. Wayne Bruce is:-)
I quit Twitter myself a few years ago – wouldn’t go near it now – I’m just to cool for it, y’know?
Facebook, land of the insecure.
Sometimes I feel like im missing out on so much by not being on fb
Surely auto-play on your phone is not going to go down well.
Imagine a busy bus home, with ads going off all the time. I know most people will go on mute, but there’s the people who wouldn’t!
Just like the journal…….
Yea, some really annoying ad with a fancy lady pops up when I open the journal, no close button to be seen so I just close and reopen to get rid of it, so annoying, any way of getting rid of it?
Android & Adblock. Tough titties if you use an iPhone.
Thanks cpm, looks like it’s tough titties 4 me then.
To be honest it doesn’t really bother me, it’s not going to stop me using Facebook. Although they have the potential to be pretty annoying, there won’t be any sound and I can just scroll down the page to hide the ad. Unlike YouTube or other apps which play ads for at least a couple of seconds before you can skip it. When the ads have to be viewed to continue, it’ll be a big problem.
Remove flash as well for desktop- that sh&t slows down your machine and hides viruses.
Some Tech head needs to figure out a site or app that lets us jump ship to an old school commercial free version of Facebook where we can still access everything. I’ll pay for it. Wish someone could do the same for YouTube. Has to be possible. F#ck them & their shareholders.
check out fbpurity.
blocks all kind of crap and lets you choose what you want on your sceen
On a related note, I hate the way the journal sticks in ads and makes them look like stories.
They can stick in all the ads they want. I’m broke and can’t afford to buy any of their shite anyway.
Don’t use FB either. I don’t like the crowd that hangs around it.
This really depends on whether there’s gonna be sound or not.
It will be total suicide if the sound comes on automatically.
I think this will just bring out more awareness of Ad block which will ruin their ad revenue because more people will use it. At the moment their ads are not that intrusive but those auto play video one’s will be really annoying.
Facebook is doomed. It’s past its sell-by date and like everything has reached it’s peak and is now in slow decline. I only wish the same could be said for that monster Google. Bah! A plague on all their exploitative houses.
And that goes for spell-checkers too! Blast and howaya – “PASSED” not ‘past’.
“effectively stealing their content”. You must be joking. I am not stealing any content from a website if I browse it without viewing their ads. I don’t want to view ads and that is my choice. I don’t use my local RTE player because i have to sit through three or four ads in a row before it plays the content. I don’t want to sit through an ad on Youtube, especially for a video that lasts under 30 seconds. Don’t be a idiot.
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