‘NAMA must change to alleviate pressure on social housing’

NAMA legislation must change if it is to help alleviate the pressure on the social housing sector, a leading charity has warned.

John Hannigan of Respond said that although the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) is taking on 10,000 units of empty or partially-built homes, currently, the legislation did not allow it to dispose of the properties for less than what it paid. “Further amendments are needed if this is to work. The Greens are talking about it but nothing has been done yet,” he said.

Respond is currently in consultation with local authorities to ascertain the suitability of the properties for social housing, but Mr Hannigan stressed that location could be a major stalling point. “A lot of these houses were built in the Longford/Leitrim area as holiday homes,” he said.

“The question will not be what condition they are in, but where are they? Do they have the services people need, the likelihood is that they probably won’t.”

Respond said the effect of not funding social housing could see people living week-to-week in private bed and breakfasts, in sub-standard conditions and with no security.

The charity, which provides social housing for vulnerable people, said there has been a 75% surge in the number of people seeking applications to get a place on its housing list, but the number of units it was building had dropped dramatically.

Mr Hannigan said the lack of funding was “critical” and there was unlikely to be significant availability of capital from Government for next two to three years.

He said the Government’s tally for the number of people on local authority waiting lists was 56,000, but Respond believed the true figure to be about double this.

Respond, which has constructed more than 4,500 homes, claims it could provide 1,000 additional homes in the coming year if funding were made available.

It says it has completed less than 400 houses this year, down more than 50% on previous years when it built between 800 and 900 annually. “Now is the time to increase funding for social housing; prices are lower, tenders are more competitive and there is a huge need for employment in the construction sector,” added Mr Hannigan.

The charity is set to take part in the biennial Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH) conference, taking place in Athlone this week, which will highlight the new challenges facing the social housing sector.

Housing Minister Michael Finneran will address the conference tomorrow and other speakers over two days include Alice Leahy, director of homeless charity Trust, Colette Kelleher, director of the Cork Simon Community and director of the ICSH Donal McManus.