About half of the estimated 12,000 homes that could be developed on land owned by remaining National Asset Management Agency (Nama) debtors have little prospect of being built in the medium term, the Oireachtas finance committee heard on Wednesday.
Speaking at a hearing on Government plans to wind down Nama by the end of next year, Des Carville, head of the Department of Finance’s bank shareholding and financial advisory unit, said that half of the pipeline has planning or is in the process of securing planning. Some 234 units are currently under construction.
However, the remaining potential residential land bank either has no planning, faces difficulty securing planning, or currently lacks zoning or services that would make the land viable for development, he said. Any prospect of developing these lands “is quite long term”, he said.
Nama funded or facilitated the delivery of 37,700 new homes in the decade through March, the agency said in June as it unveiled its latest annual report.
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Nama is set to take over the remaining assets of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) in early 2025, before it, in turn, completes its own wind-down by the end of that year. IBRC carries the remnants of Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide and has been in liquidation since 2013.
The Government plans to move the remnants of both organisations into a new resolution unit to be set up within the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA). Mr Carville said that the resolution unit will have “quite a long” lifespan to deal with residual assets and litigation in which both Nama and IBRC are involved.
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The meeting of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform on Wednesday was called to begin the pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the so-called IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of Nama Bill 2024.
Mr Carville noted that Nama expects to make a €4.8 billion lifetime surplus and will have paid some €400 million in corporation tax to the exchequer before it is wound down.
He recalled some officials from Ireland’s former bailout troika forecasting 11 years ago – towards the end of the International Monetary Fund/EU/European Central Bank rescue programme – that Nama would have a €10 billion shortfall at the end of its life.
Nama had €449 million of loans at the end of last year, about 1 per cent of the €32 billion it paid to acquire the loans from five Irish lenders on its establishment. Mr Carville said it estimated its portfolio will have fallen below €50 million by the end of next year.
IBRC’s liquidators are also currently in the process of selling most of the assets left on the company’s books – including a number of properties that once belonged to businessman Seán Quinn’s family. However, it faces difficulties selling Ukrainian and Russian assets due to the war between both countries.
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