Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 December 2018
657. Deputy Maurice Quinlivan asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the number of dwellings offered by NAMA to Limerick City and County Council and approved housing bodies in County Limerick in 2017 and to date in 2018; the number of these accepted; and the number now in use. [52931/18]
View answerFollowing proactive engagement between NAMA, the Housing Agency and my Department, a process was established to ascertain whether residential properties controlled by NAMA borrowers and receivers are suitable for social housing.
The properties considered were part of the security for loans that NAMA has acquired. In the majority of cases, properties remain in the ownership of the original borrowers. The remaining properties are controlled by receivers appointed by NAMA. Once a demand has been identified, NAMA makes contact with the relevant property owner/receiver to determine if the properties are still available and to discuss how these properties can be best utilised.
Properties that are deemed suitable may be leased or purchased by local authorities or Approved Housing Bodies (housing associations and co-operatives) through engagement with the property owners or, on their behalf, appointed insolvency practitioners, facilitated by NAMA. This is a continuous process and additional properties have been added and offered as they become available over the last number of years.
To date, a total of 2,475 residential properties nationally have been delivered for social housing providers through this process, comprising of 2,420 completed properties with a further 55 that have been contracted where completion work is on-going.
In the case of Limerick City & Council, 163 properties were offered initially, demand was confirmed for 35 and 17 have been delivered.
As data is not tracked on a yearly basis, these numbers are cumulative and not broken down by year.
Data in relation to the NAMA Social Housing process is published through regular updates to the websites of the Housing Agency and NAMA. The following link provides detailed data in this regard, broken down by local authority across a range of categories: https://www.housingagency.ie/Our-Services/Housing-Supply-Services/NAMA.aspx.
