Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

On this amendment and the Minister's dealing with the social aspects, there is an issue to which many Members of the House may have given some thought. It has been dealt with or referred to earlier in some of the debates on the legislation but it is important to raise it here and to get a steer on how NAMA intends to approach it.

What I have in mind is the vast number of unfinished housing estates some of which are partially occupied and the vast number of apartments occupied by approximately one quarter of the numbers of people who may ultimately be in a position to purchase them. There are unfinished apartments and housing estates where planning permissions have been granted, conditions have not been properly complied with, developers have run out of money and are not in a position to complete estates, and those who have purchased and moved in find themselves in difficult circumstances. What I want clarified is how NAMA will deal with this.

Initially, the debts of the developers will be transferred to NAMA and it will remain, under the planning conditions granted, the developers' responsibility to complete estates. Then there will be developers who lack the capacity to complete estates. The only way they will be able to complete them is if they get additional funding through NAMA. There will be an issue of whether they should get that additional funding or whether the properties should be subject to a vesting order which places them within NAMA. Within Dublin city and county and in other parts of the country there are people living in unfinished estates and apartments where some of the basic facilities surrounding them have not been provided who could find themselves for years in that position. I want the Minister to clarify briefly what NAMA's role will be in seeking to ensure estates are properly finished, planning conditions are complied with, and people are not left living in what could best be described as a wasteland in circumstances where they are trapped within properties they cannot sell with facilities that fall very short of what the planning authority originally envisaged.

What sort of timeframe will there be for this issue to be dealt with? How will NAMA deal with the matter at a time when the debts have been transferred to it and the still indebted developer is not meeting obligations prior to a vesting order being sought? How will NAMA deal with the matter subsequent to it successfully obtaining a vesting order? If NAMA does not deal with the original developer, what will its role be in recruiting an appropriate developer or construction company to complete unfinished estates? What will be the economics of this? I can well envisage circumstances where to complete estates could result in a vast amount of accommodation being completed for which there are no purchasers. This is another additional level of problem. To what extent has this problem been addressed?

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