Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

NAMA has a duty to the debtors, with which it works, to try to maximise the return to those debtors, because most of those guys have debts that they owe and they have to be paid back. We work with NAMA on key sites and we will use NAMA's skills, but there is a difference in the State-owned lands I am speaking about and those which the Deputy claims are State-owned lands. NAMA has a duty to the people who have debts to pay back as much debt as possible and that is a separate issue.

We should try to work together and deliver more social housing where we can. There is a commitment on the NAMA sites to deliver 20,000 houses. Some of them are under Part V and some will have more houses. On some of the sites, more than 10% is being given for social housing. Either way, what we badly need is more housing in the system because the supply of housing will help us solve this. We have to rely on the private sector through the housing assistance payment scheme and lease schemes in the short term. We do not have a choice in the matter if we want houses today and if the Deputy wants me to solve the housing situation today. We cannot solve it only with social housing, so yes, we will have to use private housing in the short term.

See this speech in context