Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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Question 64: To ask the Minister for Finance his views on the difficulties being encountered by house buyers in obtaining a letter of release on property that is National Assets Management Agency owned; the measure that will be taken to speed up the process; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5324/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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NAMA has directed all participating institutions to ensure that all credit applications are forwarded to it within ten business days of being received from debtors. NAMA, in turn, aims to respond to applications within ten business days of receiving them from institutions. Accordingly, in normal circumstances, a debtor credit application should, therefore, be processed within twenty business days of being submitted by the debtor to the institution and, in the case of letters of release, this process would be further expedited.

I understand that the Deputy may be referring to an exceptional case where an issue with the paperwork resulted in a delay in the submission of the credit application by the participating institution to NAMA. NAMA have advised that letters of release would normally be processed more quickly. NAMA will ensure that they put procedures in place to ensure that all letters of release are dealt with in an expedited manner in future.