Mayo TD questions NAMA chief on staff issues

Mayo TD Alan Dillon has raised a number of questions in respect of NAMA staff issues, including garden leave and redundancies.

During a session of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee to discuss NAMA's financial statements for 2019, the Castlebar-based representative first of all asked Brendan McDonagh, chief executive of NAMA, to outline the current employment numbers.

Deputy Dillon said: "I see from the report that NAMA has had year-on-year growth in staff numbers from 2010 to 2014, resulting in 369 employees at the end of 2014.

"What are the current numbers of staff in contracted employment with NAMA? What is the gender balance of that? What percentage of senior managers are female in the organisation?

In reply Mr. McDonagh said: "On staff numbers, we peaked at 380 in 2014 and we had 369 by the end of 2014. In 2019, we had 211 staff, we currently have around 180 and we plan to get to 143 by the middle of next year.

"Our overall gender balance is 52% male and 48% female. Of the executive team that reports to me, 25% are female."

Deputy Dillon: "Mr. McDonagh said that in 2019, NAMA had 211 employees. Some 19 of these were made redundant, sharing €1.01 million in redundancy payments. In light of NAMA's wind-down, how many redundancies is it expecting in 2020 and what strategies is it using to retain staff?

Mr. McDonagh: "We are in this difficult situation where we are trying to retain certain skilled staff and then we have a voluntary redundancy programme. In fact, our voluntary redundancy programme just closed this week.

"We offered 33 redundancies and we only had 20 who applied for and accepted them. We have a number of people on contract, so that will hopefully make up a lot of difference. That is not surprising in the Covid-19 environment.

"This time last year, people wanted to leave because there were plenty of jobs in the economy but it has become different in the last six months, which is understandable.

"To answer the Deputy's question, everybody in NAMA will be made redundant by 2025. That is the trajectory we are on, while at the same time we hope to return at least €4 billion to the Exchequer. That is what it is about. It was never an organisation for the long term."

Deputy Dillon: "Of those 33 who were offered redundancies in 2020, I see that in last year's payout, €655,000 was paid out to 20 members of staff who were on garden leave.

"Will these 33 redundancies also remunerate garden leave? Can Mr. McDonagh let members know what garden leave is and the reason why those staff were on garden leave?

Mr. McDonagh: "The reason we have garden leave is because of an issue that was raised by the Committee of Public Accounts in 2012 and 2013.

"The committee said that people were leaving NAMA and jumping straight into the private sector and that it was not good that they were bringing their knowledge from NAMA straight over to the other side of the table.

"The NTMA is the employer, not NAMA. It introduced garden leave provisions so that when anybody leaves NAMA, they have cold storage periods before they can start working anywhere else.

"Garden leave provisions are typically three months' contractual leave but if somebody says they have been offered a job somewhere that is unrelated to NAMA, we might reduce that to two months.

"That is just a way of ensuring somebody does not leave NAMA and go straight into somebody across the table."

Deputy Dillon: "Does NAMA record that?"

Mr. McDonagh: "Yes."

Deputy Dillon: "In the annual records?"

Mr. McDonagh: "It is disclosed in our financial statements every year."

Deputy Dillon: Mr. McDonagh has answered my question on garden leave, on top of redundancies. Does Mr. McDonagh feel that was appropriate and will we see that happening in the future?

"I see that NAMA has reduced the outstanding loans to €1.8 billion and the number of debtors to over 200. Mr. McDonagh said that NAMA should be wound down by 2025 so will there be a year-by-year reduction in redundancies?"

Mr. McDonagh: "Yes. We plan to go from 143 staff down to 80 next year. Some 63 people will be made redundant. At the end of the day, it is not a nice thing when people have worked hard for the agency over the years to thank them and tell them their jobs are gone.

"However, everybody knew when they came into NAMA that it had a limited lifespan and once the assets are gone that is it. We cannot employ people unless we have work for them."