Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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15. To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to use the surplus from NAMA to invest in the real economy, including social and affordable housing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7342/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that subject to current market conditions prevailing NAMA projects a surplus in the region of €3.5bn to be returned to the State once it completes its work. The realisation of this surplus depends on the redemption of NAMA’s remaining subordinated debt by March 2020 and completion of its Dublin Docklands SDZ and residential funding programmes.

As per section 60(2) of the NAMA Act 2009, NAMA must first use surplus funds to redeem and cancel its senior and subordinated debt. The Agency announced in October 2017 that it had redeemed all of its €30.2bn in Senior Debt which was guaranteed by the State and since April 2018 it has commenced the redemption of its €1.6bn in subordinated debt. Surplus funds may only be returned to the Central Fund once NAMA's debt has been redeemed in full, which is expected to be in 2020. Following this NAMA will be in a position to start transferring its expected €3.5bn surplus to the Exchequer.

Any NAMA surplus paid, while Exchequer positive, will not impact the general government balance, in line with Eurostat rules. It will be a decision for the Government as to how any surplus returned by NAMA will be utilised within the framework of the fiscal rules at that time. The intention has always been to use such receipts from the resolution of the financial sector crisis to pay down our national debt and reduce our debt servicing costs.

In the meantime NAMA is making a significant contribution to housing supply where it is in a position to do so. NAMA’s residential funding programme is expected to fund the completion of 20,000 residential units by the end of 2020. NAMA is on track to meet this target with over 9,700 delivered directly and 3,400 indirectly at the end of 2018. In addition, NAMA has an established policy of identifying to Local Authorities and approved housing bodies, properties within its portfolio which may be suitable for social housing. To date nearly 7,000 such properties have been identified, with demand confirmed for 2,717 and 2,475 delivered or committed. Part of this delivery has been through NAMA’s innovative National Asset Residential Property Services (NARPS) model, which has purchased over 1,350 properties from NAMA debtors and leased them on for social housing.