THERE HAVE BEEN calls for Gardaí to investigate how a senior executive at NAMA was able to buy a house from the agency’s property portfolio.

Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath said that the revelation exposes the agency to “the most serious allegations about how it does its business”.

Yesterday it was revealed by an investigation in the Sunday Times that the senior ex-employee bought a five bedroom house in Lucan in Dublin from NAMA’s portfolio.

“It is clear that the compliance procedures within NAMA did not work in this case,” McGrath said. “This raises the question of how many other times such private purchases have occurred involving NAMA staff or persons connected to them”.

RTE reports that the employee was a portfolio manager for NAMA when he bought the house in 2011. He is reported to have asked his employer whether there were any compliance issues before he went ahead with the purchase and was told that no issues would arise providing the house was his principal residence.

A NAMA spokesperson said that the agency is conducting an investigation along with its internal auditors Deloitte into how the transaction took place and whether there was any wrongdoing involved.

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