Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 19 January 2023

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statements 2020: Housing Agency
Financial Statements 2021: Approved Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority
Chapter 7: Housing Agency Revolving Acquisition Fund
Section 2 Report – Unauthorised Release of Funds from the Central Fund of the Exchequer

9:30 am

Mr. Jim Baneham:

There were many meetings and a lot of effort made to try to speed the process up with the AHBs. To try to explain the complexities in that regard, if an AHB had a funding arrangement with a bank, the bank would have a term sheet and it would say that the minimum drawdown from that institution under that facility would be, for instance, €5 million. Individual properties could not be bought from us on that basis. It was necessary to bundle properties together. The banks also insisted that, in some instances anyway, the properties would be fully occupied and repaired.