NAMA-LAND

The Inside Story of Ireland’s Property Sell-Off and the Creation of a New Elite.

The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) was created in 2009 to contain the spiralling fallout from Ireland's property crisis. It was to be Ireland's 'bad bank', an impartial agency where depressed assets could be revalued and sold on to the highest bidder. Eight years on, the Irish economy is once again beginning to buzz, and NAMA has presided over the transfer of over €70 billion in assets. It is regularly touted, by its founders in Leinster House and elsewhere, as a key component in Ireland's recovery.

But the basic arithmetic of assets sold hides a multitude of sins. Beneath NAMA's veneer of impartiality lies a world built on political patronage and nepotism, rife with conflicts of interest and vulnerable to shocking instances of corruption, where political influence and mismanagement has handed the initiative to a small coterie of international venture capitalists and created a vibrant trade in state secrets.

Here, and for the first time, bestselling investigative journalist Frank Connolly unravels the scandal at the heart of NAMA's mission. Based on exclusive interviews with insiders and witnesses to every aspect of the agency's function, NAMA-land is the shocking story of how political recklessness conspired to disinherit the Irish people and empower a new global elite.