Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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44. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will propose an amendment to the NAMA legislation to allow NAMA to play a greater role in the provision of social housing and housing in general; and if he will direct NAMA to carry out an audit of all its properties to ascertain which assets might be suitable for housing. [1735/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Such a direction or legislative change is not necessary as NAMA already plays a significant role in the provision of social housing and housing in general and continuously reviews the assets of every NAMA debtor to establish if properties securing their loans could be utilised for residential development or social housing.  

NAMA has an established policy of identifying to Local Authorities, properties which may be suitable for their purposes.  NAMA has facilitated the sale or lease by its debtors and receivers of properties, at market value, to public bodies for a wide-range of purposes, including social housing, schools, healthcare facilities and urban economic, environmental and cultural regeneration.  This engagement has resulted in almost 2,400 units being acquired by Local Authorities from NAMA debtors through commercial sales or leases, with a further 370 units in the pipeline.

To streamline delivery under this initiative, NAMA established National Asset Residential Property Services Limited, "NARPS", to purchase suitable properties from NAMA debtors for onward leasing to local authorities or approved housing bodies on the basis of long-term, commercial arrangements.  NARPS is both consistent with NAMA's commercial remit and also reduces the upfront capital required by local authorities to secure social housing units.

In addition 11,219 (88%) of the 12,781 residential units which had served as collateral for NAMA loans were sold individually on the open market by NAMA debtors and receivers to individual house buyers.  

The remaining 1,562 units were sold on the open market by NAMA debtors and receivers as part of larger group or portfolio sales.  NAMA advise that these units were typically already tenanted and vacant possession was not sought prior to their sale, avoiding the displacement of existing tenants.

The Deputy will also be aware that, following a detailed review of all sites securing its loans to ascertain which are suitable for housing development, NAMA plans to facilitate the delivery of up to 20,000 residential units in the period to end 2020, assuming commercial viability.

I am also advised that NAMA, as secured lender, has exposure to only 173 vacant residential properties. These are frictional vacancies, for example relating to units between tenancies, the number of which will fluctuate over time.

NAMA's 2016 year end review, available on the NAMA website, highlights NAMA's progress to date, in facilitating the delivery of social and private housing.

Finally, as the Deputy is aware, NAMA does not own property.  NAMA owns loans.  As a lender, NAMA cannot force a borrower to take action which would reduce his/her repayment capacity, such as providing a property for social or private housing where that is not economically optimal.  To do so would compromise a borrower's capacity to repay his or her debts to NAMA and would constitute a direct breach of the borrower's property rights, protected under Article 43 of the Constitution.  I am advised that a direction running counter to these obligations is not one lawfully open to me in all the current circumstances.