The National Assets Management Agency (Nama) has agreed to provide €3 million to finance urgent remedial work at “ghost estates” linked to loans held by the agency.
The agency said the fund would be used to address safety issues such as open manholes and excavations, unsecured construction sites and incomplete sewerage systems on a number of estates across the country.
The agency did not identify individual estates with which its loans were linked.
However, a recent survey by the Department of Environment found that of 221 worst estates, 28 were linked to Nama loans. The remainder were linked to loans provided by banks which are not participating in Nama.
A Nama spokesman said the agency had been working closely with the Minister for Housing Willie Penrose, and the Department of the Environment on the issue of “ghost estates”.
“Whatever about longer term solutions for the ghost estates issue, there is an urgent need to address particular problems in a number of these estates in the short term such as half completed construction works, incomplete sewerage and road works or open earth works,” he said.
“Our focus in the short term will be on financing work to address these problems while we develop longer term solutions for the problem. It is hoped that the work on the estates can begin by September,” he added.
Less than one-third of the funding available from the Department of the Environment to fix urgent health and safety problems in some 180 “ghost estates” has been allocated to local authorities, it emerged earlier this week.
Six local authorities, one of which has 16 estates classed as “developer-abandoned” and in need of urgent safety work, have made no submissions to the department for the fund established by former minister for housing Michael Finneran last February.
The €5 million fund was set up to allow local authorities to address safety issues such as open manholes and excavations, unsecured construction sites and incomplete sewerage systems.
