NAMA COULD play a role in the provision of social and affordable housing, although property would have to be acquired at market value, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has said.
He added that proposals to purchase or lease suitable blocks of unsold apartments and other units for this purpose could be implemented, subject to ministerial direction.
“If the State wants to use lands,” Mr Lenihan said, “which it has taken over as a result of the Nama process, for the provision of a school, gratis, that has to be accounted for.”
He was replying to Labour’s finance spokeswoman Joan Burton.
She moved an amendment that Nama “transfer assets under its control to appropriate ministers, local housing authorities or agencies for use in achieving their legislative responsibilities, paying particular attention to the social benefits of such transfers”.
Ms Burton said her amendment would not seek to override the economic requirements of Nama to address its functions with as much economic success as possible. “It would allow, in effect, an economic social function alongside that,” she added.
Fine Gael spokesman Richard Bruton said the issue of distressed housing would have to be looked at. “Nama gives us a very important vehicle in handling the social policy, in that it will be able to acquire those loans at a marked-down price because they are impaired and will be in a position to provide other public service entities with an opportunity to apply some of those policies, whether it is shared ownership or conventional tenancies.”
Mr Lenihan said he had always made it clear that there were certain social policies and purposes which could be effected through the Nama legislation.
However, he added, there was also a duty to safeguard the position of the taxpayer and to assume that any social policy being implemented was consistent with the mandate Nama had been given.
Notwithstanding its commercial remit, Nama should have a role in creating balanced and desirable places to live, with obvious benefits for sustainable social values, said Mr Lenihan.
While the Labour amendment was constructive, he did not believe it was required.
Mr Lenihan said Nama could facilitate the various Government departments on site acquisitions for schools, parks, health centres and hospitals.
“And all of that facilitates the creation of desirable developments and encourages sustainable communities,” he added.
One way Nama could do this, the Minister added, would be by insisting that any such bodies would be given first option on disposal for a limited period.
While such bodies would have “to pay the reasonable market prices required”, it would be given the first move or advantage.
In the past, he said, those bodies had often been held to ransom by having to pay inflated prices for projects such as school sites and the likes.
