Last May and June I raised two issues in this House relating to practices prevailing at the National Asset Management Agency. One of these was the need for NAMA to review its contracts of employment to prevent the valuable information gleaned by employees of the agency being utilised by them immediately after ceasing employment. In highlighting this issue I referred to a particular individual who left NAMA and immediately took up employment with a property company in the United Kingdom where he is now a partner. This situation significantly undermines NAMA's ability to recover the optimal amount for its assets and the best return for the Irish taxpayer, given that the individual in question would be privy to information on property valuations, loan amounts and the amount NAMA might accept for any individual property. The person to whom I refer tried to silence me by ringing my office and leaving a message on my answering machine in which he threatened me with legal action if I mentioned him again in the House in reference to this issue.

I wonder what he fears, in the light of what emerged yesterday. I also highlighted the fact that I have damning information about this same former employee, Paul Hennigan, of NAMA-----

I ask the Senator to refrain from naming people in the House in order that they can be identified.

I apologise. There had been communication with third parties in respect of a customer's loans with NAMA and this was, and is, highly prejudicial to the NAMA customer concerned. I have since found out that this individual-----

Does the Senator have a question for the Leader?

I do and I will get to it. I have now found out that this individual is working for the business to which he leaked the information in the first instance-----

The Senator cannot identify people in the House. She is under privilege.

-----but the public interest element is that I am fearful the State will be open to a legal action that could potentially amount to millions of euro. There is now an application in the High Court for an injunction in respect of one of these individuals whose information was passed on to a third party by this employee of NAMA. I am fearful about this. I raised the issue in the House previously and asked the Minister for Finance to investigate it, but I was dismissed on it.

As the Senator well knows, if the issue is before the courts, it is sub judice.

It was intimated to me by the Minister that I was abusing my parliamentary privilege. Essentially, I was fobbed off, with which I have a great difficulty. This is a massive issue for taxpayers who will ultimately have to pay. They have paid enough in the past few years as a result of austerity and corruption in this country. We must invite the Minister for Finance to the House to debate this latest scandal in order that we can assess where we will go from this point.