From top: Former Northern Ireland Finance Minister Sammy Wilson and his pick for Nama’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee, Frank Cushnahan
You may recall Nama’s sale of its northern Ireland property portfolio Project Eagle to US investment firm, Cerebrus.
A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General is expected to be published tomorrow and it has been reported that it has found the portfolio may have been undersold to the tune of hundreds of millions because of “shortcomings” and “irregularities” in the sale.
Last week’s BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight programme broadcast a secret audio recording of Frank Cushnahan, then a member of Nama’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee, receiving £40,000 – in bundles of two – from property developer John Miskelly.
Readers may recall that, in 2009, Mr Cushnahan was chosen to sit on Nama’s Northern Ireland Advisory Committee by former Northern Ireland’s Finance Minister, from 2009 to 2013, Sammy Wilson.
Further to this, Allison Morris, in the Irish News, reports:
Former finance minister Sammy Wilson said he has “no intention” of watching a BBC Spotlight investigation that aired secret recordings of a man he recommended for the Nama advisory committee taking £40,000 in cash from a property developer.
Mr Wilson was on holiday when the programme aired last week, when allegations of corruption were made against his close friend Frank Cushnahan.
However, speaking to the Irish News on Monday, he said: “I haven’t and I’ve no intention of watching anything Spotlight produce, I think they’re a bunch of biased bigots”.
Sammy Wilson calls BBC ‘biased bigots’ in Nama scandal fallout (The Irish News)
Previously: Spotlight Falls On Noonan
Pic: Irish News
…the Irish News could give Sammy a run for his money when it comes to biased bigotry…
I like his way of thinking. Everyone that disagrees with me about anything is a biased bigot.
That’s Northern Ireland for ya!
You biased bigot.
If in doubt, get tribal
And damn the evidence to the contrary!
There’s a great long read in The Guardian today about the USA’s current issues with the so-called 1%. In the article there is a reference to a book by Jared Diamond (Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed) which outlines how:
“…elites repeatedly isolate and delude themselves until it’s too late…extracting wealth from commoners, they remain well fed while everyone else is slowly starving until, in the end, even they (or their offspring) become casualties of their own privilege. Any society, it turns out, contains a built-in blueprint for failure if elites insulate themselves endlessly from the consequences of their decisions.”
The article is well worth a read, here’s the URL: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/12/how-america-became-a-1-society
Diamond’s Collapse is an excellent book, I highly recommend it.
Thank you for the link.
This from a man who’s party has repeatedly abused the petition of concern to block Equal Marriage in NI ? Take a hike Sammy.