Opposition TDs call for Nama to exit the housing market

It comes after reports that Nama had left 26 apartments in Finglas idle for a decade

Outside Leinster House today People Before Profit - Solidarity TD, Richard Boyd Barrett, said: "Nama is directly contributing to the crisis of unaffordable rents and hoarding land and property that is desperately needed to provide public and affordable housing to address the housing crisis." Photo: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie

Opposition politicians have called for Nama to step out of the housing market, with one TD saying that the agency is "directly contributing to the housing crisis".

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett was speaking at Leinster House today after reports that Nama had left 26 apartments in Finglas idle for a decade.

Mr Boyd Barrett said that the story in The Business Post "confirmed what he already knew".

"Nama is directly contributing to the crisis of unaffordable rents and hoarding land and property that is desperately needed to provide public and affordable housing to address the housing crisis.

"It is an absolute scandal that a wholly-owned State agency, which has now made a surplus - a very considerable surplus - is engaged in hiking rental prices, sitting on empty properties, and planning to unload tens of thousands of more properties to cuckoo funds, vulture funds and property investors, who are charging extortionate rents, in some cases evicting tenants, and contributing directly to the housing crisis."

People Before Profit says that it wants an instruction to be issued by the Ministers for Housing and Finance that all homes sold by Nama are for public housing. Mr Boyd Barrett said that it was "unconscionable" that State-owned homes and land would be sold off at a time of crisis.

Social Democrats Housing spokesman Cian O'Callaghan said that there is a "very strong case" that Nama-owned land and reserves should be used to tackle the housing crisis.

Key points from @RoryHearne:#NAMA has 1,000s of homes which it is selling to funds. #NAMA is wholly debt free with 1.2 billion in reserves & 577 hectares of land.#NAMA could be directed to provide 4,000 cost rental & 4,000 affordable homes a year.https://t.co/xebYByBIbO

— Cian O'Callaghan T.D. (@OCallaghanCian) October 18, 2021

"I can't see any argument why Nama should be continuing as is. By selling to investment funds, the State is going to be paying very expensive leases back."

Mr O'Callaghan said that the handling of Nama was a "key test" to see if the Government is "serious" about tackling the housing crisis.