Nama investigation hamstrung by ‘exceptional’ decision not to instruct senior counsel
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Susan Gilvarry
A decision not to seek assistance or advice from senior counsel in the long-running investigation into the Nama scandal was “exceptional” when compared to similar investigations, the lawyer heading the investigation has said.
The final report into the Nama scandal, originally due by summer 2018, has been delayed again until November 2023 at the earliest.
In a short interim report published yesterday, Susan Gilvarry, the sole member of the commission of investigation, suggested that its work had been slowed down by efforts to “limit legal fees incurred”.
The commission, established in 2017, is investigating the National Asset Management Agency’s (Nama) disposal of its Northern Ireland loan portfolio, known as Project Eagle, in a €1.6 billion transaction.
It was originally led by retired High Court judge Mr Justice John Cooke, who passed away in April 2022. Ms Gilvarry was appointed as the new sole member in June 2022.
Writing in the commission’s fifteenth interim report, also her second interim report, Ms Gilvarry said the commission “has historically had a small legal team” with five junior counsel, no documentary junior counsel and no senior counsel.
She said the decision not to seek the assistance or advice of senior counsel “was exceptional when one compares this commission to other commissions of similar size and complexity” and was because the commission “was and remains conscious of its duty to limit legal fees incurred insofar as possible”.
Ms Gilvarry last year oversaw the expansion of the legal team, with a solicitor joining the commission in September 2022 and a senior counsel being appointed for the first time in October 2022.
She said reviewing the commission’s evidence and documentation as well as the draft report produced by Mr Justice Cooke before he had passed “proved to be a complex logistical task” and had raised a number of issues on which the commission required “further legal and expert assistance”.
The commission subsequently received this assistance and is now in correspondence with a number of affected parties seeking assistance in relation to the issues raised. “This process is ongoing,” she said.
In parallel, the commission is working on the “preparation and finalisation” of its final draft report, which is now “at an advanced stage”.
The timeframe for the submission of the final report was extended until 31 October 2023.
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