NAMA has defended paying salaries to developers who still owe the agency millions of euro.
The agency confirmed to the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry that only five borrowers have repaid their loans in full, out of a total of 772.
NAMA said that it will turn a profit of €1bn by the end of the decade, based on the current state of the property market.
Chief executive Brendan McDonagh said that paying salaries to developers to run their own businesses is the best deal for the taxpayer:.
"The alternative for us is to appoint receivers, where the costs would be a multiple of what it costs us to pay people to help us to maximise the return on the assets," he said.
"So it is a commercial fact of life for NAMA, that we have to maximise the return on the assets and to do it in the most economic and efficient way possible, and that's what we do."