Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There was one item I missed out on, No. 3A.9 from NAMA, on the provision of units for the purpose of social housing. We got a report from NAMA, but when we read it we are scarcely the wiser. This concerns the famous 6,574 units which were originally identified by NAMA for consideration by the local authorities. The local authorities decided that 4,048 of the units were not suitable. NAMA breaks down the reasons for those decisions as follows: for 1,130 units, no demand; for 1,175, no sustainable community; 84 units were rejected as not suitable; and the last 1,579 were no longer available. This is extremely confusing and raises major issues. The matter was raised in the Dáil yesterday by Deputy Micheál Martin. Although 6,500 units were made available to local authorities for social housing in the present housing crisis, over 4,000 were declined as being unsuitable in one way or another. In the last month or two, however, NAMA went ahead and sold them all and they were snapped up by private developers. Yet they were not suitable for social housing even though we have the biggest social housing crisis in the country. The explanation certainly only confuses the matter.

Even though the local authorities are not answerable to us in any way and we cannot bring them before us, I do think we should write to them. We have the list of all the local authorities here and the numbers of units they accepted or refused. We should write to them and make them answerable - ask them to explain why in this crisis they were able to refuse out of hand two thirds of the units offered by NAMA.