Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 233 and 234 together.

It is clear that NAMA is a making a substantial contribution to the provision of social housing. Since 2012, under an initiative agreed with the then Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, NAMA has identified 6,391 houses and apartments held by its debtors and receivers as being available and potentially suitable for social housing. These properties have been identified on an ongoing basis by NAMA as being available either through the completion, with NAMA funding, of previously unfinished properties, or as formerly tenanted properties have become available. These 6,391 properties equate to more than 45% of the total stock of completed residential properties securing NAMA's loans when it acquired the loans from the participating institutions.

To explain the process, once NAMA identifies a property as being available, it is a matter for local authorities, working through the Housing Agency, to determine demand for that property by reference to criteria such as location and wider planning and housing policy considerations. NAMA has no role in this process - it is a matter for the statutory housing authorities. Once local authorities have confirmed demand for properties, the approved housing bodies (AHBs) are, through the Housing Agency, asked to confirm and progress their interest in leasing or purchasing the properties. Local authorities also have the option of directly acquiring the properties. Again this is a matter entirely for the statutory housing authorities and NAMA is not involved in the process.

Of the 6,391 properties identified by NAMA as available, local authorities have confirmed demand for 2,356 of which 1,198 have already been delivered by NAMA across 74 individual transactions. As requested by the Deputy, a breakdown of delivery by year under this initiative is set out as follows:

I am advised that NAMA expects the other units for which demand has been confirmed will be delivered in 2015 on the basis that local authorities and approved housing bodies contract to purchase or lease the properties. Updated figures for the period to end Quarter 2 2015 will be published on both the NAMA and Housing Agency websites in early July. 

Once demand has been confirmed for units and contracts signed there is no impediment to the early delivery of properties by NAMA's debtors and receivers or directly through NAMA's social housing SPV, National Asset Residential Property Services Limited (NARPSL). In the case of NARPSL, once demand has been confirmed by local authorities NAMA acquires the related properties from its debtors and receivers for onward leasing under long-term leasing arrangements to AHBs. Where obstacles have emerged, there has been no shortage of effort to work around them and along the way the parties have collectively identified way to help streamline the process. The establishment of NARPSL is one example of the initiatives that NAMA has taken, in conjunction with the other key stakeholders in this process, to streamline the delivery of properties for social housing. NAMA has also introduced standardised leasing terms. NAMA also advises me that, based on working on this initiative over the past number of years, its experience is that every party involved does whatever it can to deliver these units as quickly and as efficiently as possible. However, the Deputy will appreciate that NAMA's specific role relates to making the houses available in the first place and ensuring that where demand is confirmed the properties are delivered as efficiently as possible. NAMA does not determine which units are selected for social housing nor how these units are allocated. 

In relation to NAMA's role, the Deputy will note that, in the vast majority of cases, the properties for which demand has been confirmed require substantial completion or remediation work and the resolution of compliance issues in relation to planning conditions, and regulatory standards, title issues and Multi-Unit Development Act compliance including transfer of common areas and insolvent management companies. It is NAMA's policy and practice that all properties are completed to a high standard, in compliance with all relevant planning and building regulations. In this context, NAMA has to date provided over €25m for completion works to facilitate the delivery of properties for social housing.

Further detail on this initiative can be found at

The following table provides a detailed breakdown by local authority functional area of the properties identified by NAMA and the take up by local authorities.

Table 1: Social Housing Delivery by Local Authority