The Public Accounts Committee has heard politicians in Northern Ireland wanted NAMA to speed up the sale of its Northern loans.

A member of NAMA’s board says politicians in Belfast wanted to have the loans taken out of southern hands.

The committee’s been told that Michael Noonan wanted a “quiet” sale of the loans, because he did not want Northern Ireland “hawked around”.

NAMA director Oliver Ellingham says some politicians in Belfast didn’t want the Republic in charge of Northern businesses: “Our belief was that the imput we were getting was that the political forces in Northern Ireland, would rather have these assets controlled by an American, than an entity from the South.”