Dáil debates

Wednesday, 27 September 2017

Housing: Motion [Private Members]

 

6:30 pm

Photo of Mattie McGrathMattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the proposers of the motion.

I must ask the Minister of State some questions. Houses were recently offered by NAMA to many councils. In a reply to me, however, Tipperary County Council stated that the NAMA units referred to were not appropriate for use by local authorities because a high number of them were not up to standard or did not meet construction regulations while some units had legal title and management issues. The council had granted planning permission for them in the first instance, so I do not know why that would be the case.

Following recent coverage of the rejection of significant numbers of properties offered to Tipperary County Council, I contacted both the council and NAMA. The council, in its reply to me, outlined a range of reasons it was obliged to reject the properties NAMA offered it through the Government-established Housing Agency, which acts as a mediator between NAMA and the local authorities. When I put these to NAMA however, it insisted that it was made quite clear to all agencies that any property handed over by NAMA to the Housing Agency would be fully remediated to the highest living standards and would be in full compliance with construction and building standards and in compliance with the conditions of planning regulations. Additionally, NAMA has insisted that it was made clear that prior to a hand-over, any issues relating to legal title or financial matters would have been fully regularised. There is someone codding someone here. As a result, no local authority or approved housing body would be liable for costs relating to remediation works or legal fees yet they are telling us that they will, my own council included. The Housing Agency in particular needs to clarify urgently why the properties were rejected when it appears that steps could and would have been taken to make them suitable for tenants at no cost to the local authority or the Housing Agency. We need to find out what is going on. Even if there was no immediate need, which I find very hard to believe, could they not have been accepted, remediated and then offered at a later point when social housing need arose?

The Minister of State needs to get in charge of this. He is the fifth or sixth Minister or Minister of State with responsibility for housing. We are pushing paper around and reports up and down and we have this crisis and that crisis and different agendas. We need to sort it out. We need to get NAMA and the county managers in before the committee and the Minister of State to see what is going on because there is someone codding someone and there are unfortunate people left without houses.

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