Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)
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Question 1083: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the arrangements that have been put in place in relation to granting permission to an approved housing body to borrow from the Housing Finance Agency to purchase land; the guidelines that are in place including circulars which govern this activity; the board members of the Housing Finance Agency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1540/09]

Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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In 1999, housing associations put forward a proposal that they be given direct access to capital funding from the HFA for the purposes of acquiring land/sites or to construct houses with the objective of streamlining the arrangements for the drawdown of capital funding and to speed up the implementation of the voluntary and co-operative housing programme. The Housing Finance Agency Act 1981 was subsequently amended in 2002 to enable the HFA to lend directly to approved voluntary housing bodies.

The Working Group on Voluntary & Co-operative Housing, which is representative of the voluntary & co-operative housing sector, the local authorities and my Department, subsequently considered the mechanisms by which this could be progressed and agreed that a pilot project, involving one of the larger approved housing bodies and Dublin City Council, should be advanced. However, a number of issues arose, including potential legal difficulties, and a decision has been made not to progress a pilot project at this time.

Projects progressed by the voluntary and co-operative housing sector, including the costs of land acquisition, continue to receive financial assistance through the Capital Assistance and Capital Loan and Subsidy Schemes. In accordance with the commitments set out in the Government's housing policy statement, (Delivering Homes: Sustaining Communities), it was agreed to streamline the administrative and approval arrangements for new voluntary & co-operative housing projects. New capital funding approval arrangements in this regard have been in place since July 2008. The Membership of the Board of the Housing Finance Agency is shown in the following table.