Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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545. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he has approached the National Asset Management Agency in respect of purchasing banks of apartments or houses with a view to resolving the homelessness crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5249/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is already playing an important role in the delivery of social housing. To the end of December 2015, a total of 2,000 residential properties which are part of the security for loans that NAMA has acquired had been secured for social housing use . These comprise 1,426 completed properties and a further 574 that had been contracted and where completion work is on-going. A further 249 properties are considered as being active transactions whereby terms are agreed or active negotiation is on-going , and 341 other properties are to be further appraised for their suitability . Overall, I expect this initiative will result in over 2,200 units being made available for social housing purposes. These and other statistics are available on the website of the Housing Agency at . In addition, within the context of its statutory independent commercial mandate, NAMA expects to be in a position to fund the construction of up to 20,000 new residential units, predominantly located in Dublin and the neighbouring counties of Wicklow, Kildare and Meath over the next five years. In line with residential planning and regulatory requirements, developments funded by NAMA are subject to policy relating to Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000. As such, I expect 10% of the output of this investment by NAMA, or roughly 2,000 units, to become available for social housing. It will also be open to local authorities or Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) to seek to purchase additional units , including blocks or groups of units, within these developments for social housing purposes, with the assistance of one of the capital or current funding programmes available from my Department and subject to the normal criteria for sustainable mixed tenure communities.

My Department will continue to work closely with NAMA to ensure that maximum social housing benefit is gained through NAMA activities.