Transparency is the key to trust - Editorial, Opinion - Independent.ie

Transparency is the key to trust - Editorial, Opinion - Independent.ie: Nothing like one in every 10 Irish citizens has more than the vaguest notion what NAMA -- the National Asset Management Agency -- is or what it does. But anybody can understand the transaction which has turned a spotlight on to this immensely powerful and immensely secretive agency.
A former NAMA employee, Enda Farrell, bought a house and two acres of land for €420,000. In more prosperous times, the same property had been sold for €1.2m. The difference is considerably more than the average fall in residential property prices, but instances of steeper declines are common and well known.
However, the agency has sharp questions to answer about this transaction, and in facing them it should shed its ingrained reluctance to give the public any information.
Naturally it denies that "insider dealing" was involved. Were that the case, someone would have committed a criminal offence. But it has asked its internal auditors, Deloitte, to inquire into whether full statutory and disclosure requirements were adhered to.