Written answers

Wednesday, 16 October 2013

Department of Finance

NAMA Portfolio Issues

Photo of Patrick NultyPatrick Nulty (Dublin West, Independent)
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5. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will consider amending the National Assets Management Agency legislation to allow all urban green space that has been left idle for five or more years to be given over for community use and turned into allotments that could be made available to persons out of work and people living on low incomes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43705/13]

Photo of Michael NoonanMichael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, given the independence afforded to NAMA by the NAMA Act, and having established NAMA’s mandate through legislation, I have no role as Minister for Finance in relation to strategies applied by NAMA in fulfilling that mandate. NAMA’s role is that of a secured lender, like any bank they own the debt while the debtor or appointed liquidator still owns and controls the assets and is ultimately responsible for these assets, the Agency is therefore not in a position to compel its debtors and receivers to cede property either free of charge or at less than market value.

Decisions relating to the disposal of properties securing NAMA loans are an operational matter for the Board of NAMA which is guided by its commercial mandate under the NAMA Act 2009. Section 10 of the NAMA Act statutorily obliges NAMA to ‘obtain the best achievable return for the State’ from the management or its acquired loan portfolio. NAMA is obliged to carry out its functions in the context of the overriding commercial objective provided for by Section 10 of the Act and to recover the greatest amount possible for the taxpayer from the sale of loans and properties securing its loans.

NAMA fulfils its social obligation remit by facilitating a dialogue between NAMA debtors and 3rd parties so as to enable the latter to acquire suitable property for social, sporting and other public purposes. Importantly, the NAMA Board has committed to giving first refusal to any public authority, including Government departments, State agencies and local authorities, in respect of the purchase of property from NAMA debtors and receivers which may be suitable for their purposes. In line with this commitment, NAMA has accommodated the release of lands and property for schools, health care facilities, community and recreational amenities and other uses. Examples include:

- The identification of 4,350 houses and apartments for social housing

- The identification of more than 70 sites as potentially suitable for new schools

- The sale of sites to University College Dublin and University College Cork

- The sale of the Opera Centre site in Limerick to Limerick City Council

- The release of lands in Baldoyle, north Co. Dublin to Fingal County Council for parkland

- Co-funding, with Fingal County Council, of an N2-N3 link road through lands in west Dublin to facilitate identified development requirements

NAMA is also engaging with the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive in relation to possible sites and buildings for primary health care centres and other step-down and community health care facilities.

The Agency, therefore, whilst working to obtain the best achievable financial return for the taxpayer, is very open to realistic proposals that achieve desirable social objectives and there are numerous examples of this. In addition to NAMA’s on-going engagement with public bodies in relation to specific initiatives, such as social housing, it is open to any public body to identify its interest in lands and property securing the Agency’s loans.

I believe the approach determined by NAMA’s Board is contributing in terms of its primary commercial objective, while at the same time contributing to the achievement of wider public policy objectives. In light of this I do not intend to intervene, through legislative amendment or otherwise, in NAMA’s positive work in this area.

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