People on low incomes who has seen the minimum wage or welfare payments cut in the budget and working families who will see their tax bill rise significantly in the New Year, will have been incensed by the disclosures on the Prime Time Investigates programme of the kid-glove treatment being given to many developers by NAMA.

It was the reckless behaviour of many developers that has driven the country to the economic precipice requiring measures that will inflict serious economic pain on families for years to come.

Yet while those on the lowest incomes are being required to make sacrifices we saw on Prime Time how many in this privileged elite continue to enjoy a lavish lifestyle featuring helicopters, racehorses and country estates.

What is more it appears from the Programme that these same developers have been able to keep one step ahead of NAMA through the systematic transfer of valuable property to spouses.

And to add insult to injury we also saw how the state continues to facilitate the lavish lifestyle through the renting of office space from the very same developers.

Lavish promises made at the time of the introduction of the NAMA legislation that delinquent developers would be ruthlessly pursued have simply not been fulfilled.

I hope that the promise from the Chair of NAMA, Frank Daly, that those developers who have transferred properties to spouses would be pursued does not prove to be yet another case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.