Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) which was designed to cater for Ireland’s toxic debts, is seizing debtors jewels and selling helicopters as the country’s top defaulters are named.

Established by the Irish government in 2009, the Dublin agency announced a loss of $1.6 million in 2010 after inheriting charges of $2.02 billion, when they published their annual report this week.

“One of my colleagues told me (Wednesday) he just secured $271,000 (€200,000 ) worth of jewels that a debtor had purchased for his partner," Brendan McDonagh, the chief executive, told the media in Dublin.
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“The planes are gone, the helicopters are grounded and are being sold,” he said.

“We’ve made enormous progress on a wide range of fronts over the past 15 months, and we’re ahead of schedule in respect of many areas,” he added.

“Our expectation now is that the pace of activity will step up again in the months ahead as we move through the implementation phase of our work.”

NAMA’s top debtors owe a total of $84 billion. In total, the agency acquired 11,500 loans relating to 850 debtors from the five participating financial institutions.

A full list of properties acquired by the agency, in the Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain. is available here.

McDonagh is still confident that the agency will make a €1 billion profit at the end of its ten-year lifespan.

“We are working very hard to get as much money back but we are not being any way insidious about it; we are being business-like and tough but fair,” he said.