The Irish Independent reports that the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) has told Bank of Ireland, EBS and Irish Nationwide that they have until tomorrow to object to the valuations placed on the first tranche of loans presented to the banks a few days ago.

The agency decided to reduce the time available to the lenders to protest against the valuations from 28 days to less than a week to ensure that the 100 loans from the country's top developers begin transferring on schedule, sources say.

The three banks began to receive information from NAMA late last week about what loans will be moved. The information includes which loans will be transferred, how much will be paid and how these loans will be valued. While the banks have until tomorrow to object to the figures, they will be able to appeal decisions at the end of the process, which is expected to last about a year. NAMA told Bank of Ireland the initial batch of loans would be written down by between 35pc and 40pc, the 'Sunday Business Post' reported yesterday, citing government officials. The figure is being closely watched because it will determine how much the bank will need to raise by other means.

Both Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank are expected to unveil their latest set of results next week after Finance Minister Brian Lenihan makes a speech on the future of the banking sector, which was due this week but may be delayed until next week.

Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said at the party's economic forum at the weekend that there was "a huge" information deficiency which prevented real debate about NAMA and bank bailouts.

 "In the US, regardless of party, you have a flow of information which is bipartisan. For instance, there is a professor at Harvard who every few months, every few weeks if necessary, gives out information about their rescue structure. She googles, she twitters, it is up there on the net and you can look in to it,"Ms Burton said.

"We don't have that in this country and it is a huge problem both for the opposition and independent commentators."

Ms Burton said the public was relying on a continuous softening up process in relation to Anglo Irish Bank.

"I said to one person from Anglo, 'How bad is bad?' and they said, 'Terrible'. I said, 'How terrible is terrible?' and they said, 'Horrendous'. So the figures are turning in your head. It is an incredible softening up process that brings us continuously to the point of saying, 'Maybe there is no other way'."

The Irish Independent also reports that several international bodies, not just the Government, failed to see how the property bubble had artificially inflated Ireland's tax receipts, a paper by a senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) researcher has claimed.

At one point property was contributing almost one-fifth of all tax receipts, but the plunge in house prices and commercial property has now blown a hole in the public finances.

A paper by senior IMF researcher Daniel Kanda highlights the limits of economic models used by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other institutions when it comes to asset bubbles, with particular reference to Ireland.

The Government may take some satisfaction from the report because it has long maintained that international forecasters also failed to see how vulnerable public finances were to a property crash.

However, the paper makes it clear the author's conclusions "do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy''. Instead, the paper is meant to stimulate debate.

The central thesis of the paper is that standard OECD-based methodologies, used by several global bodies in their forecasts, do not put enough weight on the effects of asset price bubbles and other hidden factors.

In Ireland's case, this bias, which made the revenue prospects seem much rosier than they actually were, led to spending rises that created a large hole in the public finances, writes Mr Kanda. He says this will take several "painful'' years to close.

He says there is a strong case for expanding the "standard OECD-based methodology'' to include the "missing elements'' such as asset-price bubbles. The European Central Bank is one of the bodies changing the way it looks at different tax headings, he points out.

"The scale of the collapse in revenues in 2008 was well beyond what could be explained by the standard methodology,''writes Mr Kanda.

Another senior IMF official warned, meanwhile, that advanced economies faced "acute" challenges in tackling high public debt, and said unwinding existing stimulus measures would not come close to bringing deficits back to prudent levels.

John Lipsky, the IMF's deputy managing director, said in a speech in Beijing yesterday that all G7 countries except Canada and Germany would have debt-to-GDP ratios close to or exceeding 100pc by 2014. Already this year, the average ratio in advanced economies is expected to reach the levels seen in 1950, after World War II, he said. The government debt ratio in some emerging market nations had also reached a "worrisome level".

Surge

"This surge in government debt is occurring at a time when pressure from rising health and pension spending is building up," Mr Lipsky said.

Stimulus measures account for about one-tenth of the projected debt increase, and rolling them back won't be enough to bring deficits and debt ratios back to prudent levels.

Maintaining public debt at its post-crisis levels could cut potential growth in advanced economies by as much as half a percentage point annually, compared with pre-crisis performance, Mr Lipsky said.

The Irish Times reports that Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan is expected to reveal the extent of the additional capital requirements for Irish-owned banks on March 30th.

It is understood that the Minister will also give an up to date picture of the discounts that the banks will take on transferring their property loans to the National Asset Management Agency (Nama).

Sources indicated yesterday that the first loans could be transferred to Nama as soon as Friday this week. These will relate to the top 10 borrowers and involve about 1,000 loans with a combined value of €17 billion.

Bank of Ireland, EBS and Irish Nationwide received their draft acquisition schedules from Nama late last week and have been given until tomorrow to dispute any details in the documentation.

This deadline for disputes was originally to have been 28 days, but has been shortened significantly by Nama as it seeks to get the loans transfer process moving.

Reports at the weekend suggested that average discounts of up to 40 per cent could be applied to the first tranche of loans.

The draft documentation forms the basis of the banks' agreements with Nama, and deals with the security behind loans and the payment of Government bonds to the institutions following the transfer.

It is understood that final acquisition schedules will be issued to the three institutions this week, with the loan transfers beginning very quickly after that takes place.

The transfer of loans to Nama is expected to have begun by the time the Minister makes his speech on the recapitalisation of the Irish banks.

It is understood that Anglo Irish Bank and AIB have yet to receive their draft acquisition schedules.

Sources indicated that AIB, which is expected to transfer €23 billion in loans to Nama, would receive its draft acquisition schedule in the coming days.

It is not clear when Anglo will be issued with its draft documentation. Anglo is expected to transfer €36 billion worth of loans to Nama, making it by far the biggest single client of the agency.

A spokesman for the Department of Finance said the timeline for the Minister's announcement would be finalised this week and confirmed it would take place before the end of March. The Minister will seek to have his plan signed off by the Cabinet before he makes his speech.

The State has already pumped €11 billion into the Irish banks. Analysts estimate that AIB requires up to €4.4 billion in additional funds and Bank of Ireland up to €2.8 billion to bolster their capital ratios.

Significant cash injections will also be required for Anglo, EBS and Irish Nationwide.

In relation to Bank of Ireland, EBS and Irish Nationwide, it is understood that two of the institutions have sought to clarify the securities held over certain loans since receiving their documentation from Nama.

The State agency is thought to have applied a bigger discount to loans where there is a security issue relating to assets being transferred.

Bank of Ireland and Irish Nationwide are believed to be the two institutions that sought clarification from Nama.

Bank of Ireland is expected to transfer about €12 billion in loans to Nama with Irish Nationwide moving €8.5 billion to the agency.

EBS is transferring €800 million to Nama. The building society has said it will need up to €400 million to replenish its capital base after incurring losses on the sale of €800 million in loans to Nama.

The Irish Times also reports that the employers' group Ibec has said that any reversal by the Government of the pay cuts for public service staff introduced in the Budget last December is inconceivable given the current state of the exchequer finances.

It also said that any agreement between the Government and public sector unions arising from the current round of talks must involve an ambitious programme of reform that transformed the way the public service operated.

It said there must be specific, measurable and transparent targets, with a firm implementation timetable.

In a statement last night, Ibec also called for the current industrial action in the public service to be called off.

It said that this only served to undermine Ireland's international reputation and inconvenience the general public.

Ibec's comments came as the Government representatives and public sector union leaders prepare to meet in a plenary session of the current talks on pay determination and reform today to take stock of where the process has gone over the past week.

Over recent days the parties have been meeting at sectoral level - health, education, local authorities and the Civil Service - to consider proposals for reform first drawn up in December.

The highly controversial issue of pay is not expected to be dealt with until later in the week.

In its statement, Ibec director Brendan McGinty said that through the benchmarking processes and national agreements taxpayers had already paid for reform of the public sector but what had been delivered was insufficient. He said the country still did not have an integrated public service.

Mr McGinty said:"Despite the pay cuts in December, the public sector pay and pensions bill this year will be €19 billion and will consume 60 per cent of all tax revenue.

Finding savings through public sector reform is the only way trade unions can hope to minimise the impact of future cuts, given that the Government is committed to making further budgetary adjustments of €3 billion in 2011 and €3 billion in 2012."

Ibec said that any agreement with the unions must involve:

Specific, measurable and transparent targets, with a firm implementation timetable;

Reducing waste and duplication through better and more flexible use of staff;

The overhaul of employment practices and human resource structures to address problems around redeployment, rosters, working patterns, skill mix issues, premium payments, performance management policies and absenteeism;

Improving service provision in the public sector by codifying and raising service standards;

The greater use of shared services, outsourcing and increased collaboration with the private sector;

Improving public procurement practices; and

A national oversight body to ensure full accountability and transparency in the delivery of reform.

The Irish Examiner reports that this is a "make or break year" for Ireland’s bid to create a smart green economy.

This is according to the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA), which said the next nine months will prove crucial for the Irish energy sector as national targets of delivering 40% of electricity from renewable resources by 2020 hinge on the Government eliminating "unnecessary red tape and providing a stable framework for investors in 2010".

Ireland’s largest renewable energy conference, organised by the IWEA, takes place on Thursday and Friday at Dublin’s Four Seasons Hotel, where delegates will be told that the country’s opportunities from wind energy are threatened by an overcomplicated and unstable policy framework.

Irish Wind Energy Association chief executive Dr Michael Walsh said: "2010 will be a make or break year for the Irish energy sector as decisions and plans that are made this year will have a far-reaching impact.

"We stand on the precipice of a very significant economic and sustainable energy opportunity.

"The importance of the green economy has been repeatedly stressed by the Government in statements from the 2008 Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal to last year’s Revised Programme for Government.

"However, our members are growing frustrated at the increasingly difficult investment environment, which is complicated by a lack of co-ordination between official agencies."

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The New York Times reports that House Democrats approved a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health system on Sunday, voting over unanimous Republican opposition to provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans after an epic political battle that could define the differences between the parties for years.

With the 219-to-212 vote, the House gave final approval to legislation passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve. Thirty-four Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill. The vote sent the measure to President Obama, whose yearlong push for the legislation has been the centerpiece of his agenda and a test of his political power.

After approving the bill, the House adopted a package of changes to it by a vote of 220 to 211. That package — agreed to in negotiations among House and Senate Democrats and the White House — now goes to the Senate for action as soon as this week. It would be the final step in a bitter legislative fight that has highlighted the nation’s deep partisan and ideological divisions.

On a sun-splashed day outside the Capitol, protesters, urged on by House Republicans, chanted “Kill the bill” and waved yellow flags declaring “Don’t Tread on Me.” They carried signs saying “Doctors, Not Dictators.”

Inside, Democrats hailed the votes as a historic advance in social justice, comparable to the establishment of Medicare and Social Security. They said the bill would also put pressure on rising health care costs and rein in federal budget deficits.

“This is the Civil Rights Act of the 21st century,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House.

Mr. Obama celebrated the House action in remarks at the White House.

“We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests,” Mr. Obama said.“We didn’t give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things.”

“This isn’t radical reform,” he added, “but it is major reform.”

After a year of combat and weeks of legislative brinksmanship, House Democrats and the White House clinched their victory only hours before the voting started on Sunday. They agreed to a deal with opponents of abortion rights within their party to reiterate in an executive order that federal money provided by the bill could not be used for abortions, securing for Democrats the final handful of votes they needed to assure passage.

Winding up the debate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “After a year of debate and hearing the calls of millions of Americans, we have come to this historic moment. Today we have the opportunity to complete the great unfinished business of our society and pass health insurance reform for all Americans that is a right and not a privilege.”

The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, said lawmakers were defying the wishes of their constituents. “The American people are angry,” Mr. Boehner said. “This body moves forward against their will. Shame on us.”

Republicans said the plan would saddle the nation with unaffordable levels of debt, leave states with expensive new obligations, weaken Medicare and give the government a huge new role in the health care system.

The debate on the legislation set up a bitter midterm campaign season, with Republicans promising an effort to repeal the legislation, challenge its constitutionality or block its provisions in the states.

Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, denounced the bill as “a fiscal Frankenstein.” Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, called it “a decisive step in the weakening of the United States.” Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, said it was“one of the most offensive pieces of social engineering legislation in the history of the United States.”

But Representative Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio, said the bill heralded “a new day in America.” Representative Doris Matsui, Democrat of California, said it would “improve the quality of life for millions of American families.”

The health care bill would require most Americans to have health insurance, would add 16 million people to the Medicaid rolls and would subsidize private coverage for low- and middle-income people, at a cost to the government of $938 billion over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office said.

The bill would require many employers to offer coverage to employees or pay a penalty. Each state would set up a marketplace, or exchange, where consumers without such coverage could shop for insurance meeting federal standards.

The budget office estimates that the bill would provide coverage to 32 million uninsured people, but still leave 23 million uninsured in 2019. One-third of those remaining uninsured would be illegal immigrants.

The new costs, according to the budget office, would be more than offset by savings in Medicare and by new taxes and fees, including a tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans and a tax on the investment income of the most affluent Americans.

Cost estimates by the budget office, showing that the bill would reduce federal budget deficits by $143 billion in the next 10 years, persuaded some fiscally conservative Democrats to vote for the bill.

Democrats said Americans would embrace the bill when they saw its benefits, including some provisions that take effect later this year.

Health insurers, for example, could not deny coverage to children with medical problems or suddenly drop coverage for people who become ill. Insurers must allow children to stay on their parents’ policies until they turn 26. Small businesses could obtain tax credits to help them buy insurance.

The Democratic effort to secure the 216 votes needed for passage of the legislation came together only after last-minute negotiations involving the White House, the House leadership and a group of Democratic opponents of abortion rights, led by Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan. On Sunday afternoon, members of the group announced that they would support the legislation after Mr. Obama promised to issue an executive order to “ensure that federal funds are not used for abortion services.”

Mr. Stupak described the order as a significant guarantee that would “protect the sanctity of life in health care reform.” But supporters of abortion rights — and some opponents — said the order merely reaffirmed what was in the bill.

The vote to pass the Senate version of the bill means that it will become the law of the land as soon as Mr. Obama signs it, regardless of when — or even whether — the Senate acts on the package of changes the House also passed.

In his remarks, shortly before midnight in the East Room, Mr. Obama urged the Senate to complete the final pieces of the legislation. “Some have predicted another siege of parliamentary maneuvering in order to delay it,” he said. “I hope that’s not the case.”

He continued, “It’s time to bring this debate to a close and begin the hard work of implementing this reform properly on behalf of the American people.”

Mr. Obama watched the roll call with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the Roosevelt Room in the White House.

The House galleries were full, and the floor was unusually crowded, for the historic debate on health care.

Working together, Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi revived the legislation when it appeared dead after Democrats lost their 60th vote in the Senate and with it their ability to shut off Republican filibusters.

Republicans said they would use the outcome to bludgeon Democrats in this year’s Congressional elections. The White House is planning an intensive effort to convince people of the bill’s benefits. But if Democrats suffer substantial losses in November, Mr. Obama could be stymied on other issues.

The campaign for a health care overhaul began as a way to help the uninsured. But it gained momentum when middle-class families with health insurance flooded Congress with their grievances. They complained of soaring premiums. They said their insurance had been canceled when they got sick.

“It’s not just the uninsured,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We also have to worry about people with insurance who find, for crazy reasons, that they are somehow going to be denied coverage.”

In the end, groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business tried to stop the bill, saying it would increase the cost of doing business. But other groups, including the American Medical Association and AARP, backed it, as did the pharmaceutical industry.

Lawmakers agreed that Sunday’s debate was historic, but they were poles apart in assessing the legislation.

Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, said, “You cannot expect to expand coverage to millions of individuals and to curb costs at the same time.”

Republicans said the picture painted by the budget office was too rosy, because the new taxes and fees would start immediately, while the major costs would not show up for four years.

Moreover, Republicans said Democrats would pay a price for defying public opinion on the bill.

“Are you so arrogant that you know what’s best for the American people?” Representative Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia, asked the Democrats. “Are you so ignorant to be oblivious to the wishes of the American people?”

Lawmakers spoke with deep conviction in explaining their votes.

“Health care is not only a civil right, it’s a moral issue,” said Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, who invoked the memory of his father, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and a lifelong champion of health care for all.

After the legislation passed, Mr. Obama sought to place the day in perspective.

“In the end what this day represents is another stone firmly laid in the foundation of the American dream,”the president said. “Tonight, we answered the call of history as so many generations of Americans have before us. When faced with crisis, we did not shrink from our challenges. We overcame them. We did not avoid our responsibilities, we embraced it. We did not fear our future, we shaped it.”

The NYT also reports that with a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system, Congress would be giving the health care industry as many as 32 million additional paying customers in the next few years.

That would mean millions more Americans buying private health insurance and better able to pay for their hospital stays, doctors’ visits, prescription drugs and medical devices.

And some analysts said as the vote neared that the final legislation was shaping up as much kinder to the industry than many initially feared. Hospitals and drug makers, which supported the final legislation, would be clear beneficiaries, analysts say, even if the outlook for insurers was less certain.

Yet the bill would not create the thing that insurers feared most: a government-run public option, a health plan that would compete with the private insurers.

Over all, the legislation would be a positive for much of the industry, said Les Funtleyder, who oversees health care strategy for Miller Tabak & Company, a New York investment firm.

There is no question that insurers would face the most strikingly different business environment, with drastic changes in the way insurance is sold to individuals and small businesses, one of the industry’s most profitable areas. There would also be much heavier regulation.

“It’s a huge business risk,”said Rick Weissenstein, a health care policy analyst at Concept Capital, which follows developments for investors. “There are going to be some insurers that aren’t going to adapt very well.”

But insurers are expected to benefit from the influx of new customers after years of shrinking enrollments. About 16 million of the newly insured are expected to enroll in private plans. The rest would become eligible for Medicaid, the state-administered program for the poor, but some of those would probably sign up for privately run Medicaid plans available in different states.

One place where the rules of the insurance game may shift most significantly is in a new kind of state-supervised marketplace, called exchanges, in which insurers would be required to sell their policies for individuals and small businesses. The exchanges are expected to involve much greater regulatory oversight than insurers now typically face and to alter their business models drastically. Currently, insurers seek to protect profits by trying to enroll only the healthiest individuals, while also charging enough to recoup the expense of covering sick people. But the legislation requires insurers to cover even people with potentially costly pre-existing conditions.

The new law would also place strict limits on how much more an insurer could vary premiums among the people taking out the same policy, largely to factor in age differences.

As a result, the insurers, whose main trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, vehemently opposed the legislation, have been quite vocal about their concern that young and healthy people will not enroll because the new requirements will make their premiums higher to help subsidize the older and sicker.

To help spread the costs and risks of insurance, the legislation would eventually require most Americans to have insurance or pay a federal penalty. But insurers have worried that the penalties are too low or will not be enforced.

Insurers have also complained that the legislation calls for the government to begin paying them much less in federal payments for the private Medicare Advantage plans that they sell to older people as an alternative to traditional Medicare.

The insurers are also subject to a range of new fees, although the timing has been delayed.

Indeed, for anyone assessing the impact, it is important to remember that few of the legislation’s main provisions would take place immediately, noted Jason Gurda, an analyst with Leerink Swann. “Most of the health care provisions that would impact the health insurers do not kick in until 2014,” he said.“From an investment horizon, that’s a long time.”

Hospitals have little to fear. The number of newly insured is expected to decrease significantly the amount that hospitals now lose each year when they provide care to people with no means to pay.

But the expanded enrollments in the low-income Medicaid program could be a mixed blessing, analysts say, because Medicaid typically pays hospitals less than the actual cost of care. So the question becomes whether hospitals were already treating many of these patients without any reimbursement at all, or whether they will now see an influx of new money-losing Medicaid customers.

For their part, the hospitals agreed to help defray the costs of the legislation by agreeing to contribute $155 billion over 10 years, largely by accepting lower payments under the Medicare program for older Americans.

Doctors are another group likely to benefit from more paying customers, which is a reason that the American Medical Association last week began publicly supporting the legislation.

Yet doctors must still wait for Congress to handle the sharp payment cuts they perennially face under Medicare as a result of the formula the government uses to pay doctors. In recent years, Congress has annually stepped in with a so-called doc fix to stave off those cuts.

“The fact that there’s not a physician fix leaves in limbo physicians,”said Paul Keckley, the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a research unit of the consulting firm.

Drug makers, meanwhile, may have the most clear reason to celebrate the legislation. Pharmaceutical companies are going to be asked to contribute $85 billion toward the cost of the bill in the form of industry fees and lower prices paid under government programs over 10 years. But they can look forward to tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue as more people with insurance visit doctors and fill prescriptions.

The legislation will also eventually close the gap in Medicare drug coverage, known as the doughnut hole, in which elderly patients must pay for prescription drugs rather than having them covered by the government. Many chose to stop taking their medicine or switched to lower-price generics.

And significantly, the legislation allowed the drug industry to “avoid any of the issues that were particularly of concern — price control or more regulation by the federal government,” said Barbara Ryan, an analyst with Deutsche Bank.

As a result, the pharmaceutical industry has been a significant proponent of the legislation, in sharp contrast to its behavior when the Clinton administration tried to pass a similar overhaul. The industry spent an estimated $100 million in TV advertising, grass-roots organizing and other marketing efforts to promote reform.

The generic side of the drug industry had somewhat less to celebrate. Legislators left intact a bill provision giving name-brand drug makers 12 years of marketing exclusivity on expensive medications called biologic drugs, which are made out of living cells. Many of those drugs, including cancer treatments, cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars a year.

“Real reform could have expanded access to affordable medicine to patients in need,”Kathleen Jaeger, the president of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, said in a statement.

But generic makers could have benefited from a provision that Congress did not include in the final bill: a proposal that would have placed new restrictions on patent settlement agreements. Under such deals, some name-brand drug companies have paid or otherwise compensated generic makers to delay introducing new generics.

Critics, including the Federal Trade Commission, argue that such deals are anticompetitive. Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, said last week that consumers would suffer if Congress allowed such deals to continue.

“The big winners are some of the branded pharmaceutical companies who have engaged in these deals and some of the generics who have done the same,”he said. “The big loser is the American consumer, who is going to have to pay an extra $3.5 billion a year in much-needed drugs.”