Here’s a thought. How many people are aware of what exactly was being investigated by that Stormont Finance Committee and what the upshot of its investigations were? I’d be brazen enough to echo Michael Caine and suggest not many people know that. And I’d include myself in that number.
When I’ve attempted to research what exactly NAMA is and how it operates, I run into the problem you often have when you ask a computer geek to explain something: s/he, deliberately or otherwise, tells you far more than you need to know and you leave as perplexed as ever.
OK then, this is what I gather – and I’m happy to be corrected.
NAMA or the National Assets Management Agency is the body set up in the south to sort out bad debts incurred by property developers. It was operating here in the north since many of these bad debts had to do with properties here. Then some startling accusations began to surface:
- Mick Wallace TD claimed under Dail privilege that there was some £7 million in an Isle of Man account, earmarked for a northern politician.
- Further claims were made that £45 million had been earmarked for fixers.
- The NAMA deal in question involved a staggering £1.2 billion, so maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised if some people were attempting to shove the odd million or seven under their mattress.
- Martin McGuinness has claimed that he wasn’t told by the DUP about meetings and contacts between NAMA, parties to this massive deal and DUP ministers. For example, former US vice-president Dan Quayle met in Stormont with the DUP but McGuinness was kept in the dark about this. Quayle is the chairman of Cerberus Global Investments, the US fund which bought the NAMA loans.
- Jamie Bryson claimed to have evidence to show that Peter Robinson was involved in, um, financial jiggery-pokery and appeared before the Stormont committee investigating the matter to say so.
- Peter Robinson appeared before the Stormont committee and poo-poohed Bryson’s claim, saying in effect “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”
So now here’s the thing. Was Martin McGuinness kept in the dark regarding DUP negotiations with Quayle? Was £7 million sitting in an Isle of Man bank with a northern politician’s name written on it? If so, wouldn’t that be a more damning matter than Daithí McKay (allegedly) telling Jamie Bryson how to cut an impressive figure when he appeared before the Stormont committee (admittedly a stiff task)?
And has that investigation into the murky NAMA sales affair now been concluded? Money found? Anybody asked to resign? Anybody put in prison?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that few of you reading this will know the conclusive answer to those last four questions. But I’d feel confident in saying that there are few in Ireland north or south who don’t think there were people involved in the NAMA deal that were squirreling away the odd million here and there, or that such massive sweeteners weren’t part of the deal. Where the cow pat is big enough the blue-flies gather; and where the money is big enough the chancers elbow their way to the money pot.
I know this morning you’re probably much more exercised over who advised who in the Daithí McKay case. But I’m not. That’s public millions which have been (allegedly) syphoned off, and the thought of some white-collared wide-boy wanker filling his boots enrages me.
The getting of one’s hands filthy when sifting through dodgy lucre is inevitable and quite unlike fingering the castor contents of a fat, white bag marked ‘Siucra’.
So, for going to all the bother of getting to the bottom of one pocket of NAMA’S murky past north of the Black Sow’s Dyke , Esteemed Blogmeister, it is only fair that one should reciprocate.
And no more fitting way, perhaps, that shedding light on what will happen in one pocket of the future, heading south of the Black Sow’s Dyke.
But first, by way of background to the foreground.
Yesterday was a day of remarkable revelation.. Regarding one of the trademark Irish mantras of the mid-century. It involved a showband singer, the dead ringer of an illegible signature , who preferred ballads to rock, and the visceral wishes of whose fans was invariably expressed thus:
-Spit on me, Dickie !
One had always assumed it had been first uttered on Liffeyside, home town of Dickie Rock (for it is he !) So much for assumptions. and the feast day that goes with it. The immortal imprecation was in fact first heard on Laganside.
If was articulated indeed in the urbane ambiance of the, erm, Boom, Boom Rooms (sic) , Belfast. And in all probability initially sounded like:
-Spit on me, Dackie !
As this revelation was made by the eponymous showband singer himself while Talking to Joe on RTE it is only meet and j. that the glimpse into the future should be, likewise, into the Broadcasting Wing of The Unionist Times.
One’s prediction will therefore take the form of coaching the designated Shinner who draws the short lot to have his snot get what-not on the This Week Programme on RTE Radio 1 tomorrow.
At the receiving end of the verbal fists of Growly Crowley, the bruiser of a broadcaster who always oozes menace when in possession of a microphone. And never more so than when confronted with a Shinner as, erm, guest.
It has been noted that RTE interrogators always tend to get taller by standing on their wallets for these specific confrontations
Therefore, some advice for the Short-straw Shinner:
Accept that there will be diddly squat about the four minor points raised in the third last paragraph in today’s blog. To do with murky NAMA matters, money, resignations, chokey.
And opt instead, for :
THE STRIKE PRE-EMPTIVE
Accept the absence of an honour guard
Imagine you’re a No 1 of Scotland Yard
Quail like a quail, son
In front of hunting gun
Plead: ‘Expectorate upon one, Richard!’