Ms Lisa Clifford:

In relation to NAMA, we have a steering group in place between NAMA, the housing agency and the Department which goes through the portfolio of NAMA properties as they arise. As the Secretary General said, NAMA own the loans on these properties, as opposed to the properties themselves, so they often have to talk to receivers who may be in place or developers who still own those properties. As the properties are identified, the first step is that the housing agency contacts the local authorities in question to see whether there is a demand for the properties. If so, it enters into the process of identifying, where appropriate, if there is a purchase under the leasing scheme and an approved housing body that might be interested or able to purchase those units. There are a number of different ways that those units can come out of NAMA: the local authority, if it has funding available, might be able to purchase them itself, an approved housing body might be able to purchase them through the capital assistance scheme, or they can come through the leasing scheme, going through the NAMA special purpose vehicle, SPV, under which the approved housing body leases them from NAMA's SPV or purchases them using the capital advance leasing facility. There are a number of different strands as to how it can come through. The steering group identifies what is the best way of doing those. If a voluntary body has already expressed interest in those properties, outside of the NAMA process, we tend to go to it first. If not, there is an objective selection process whereby we would have a panel of approved housing bodies that would have expressed interest in certain counties, and if an approved housing body is not already involved in that project, the project would be sent out to the panel of approved housing bodies for them to come back to express interest in it.