Nama land sales to speculators sowed seeds of current housing crisis, new report claims

Tasc, the social change think tank, says Nama ultimately “lengthened and slowed the development supply chain”, and directly contributed to the state’s housing crisis

Robert Sweeney, policy analyst at Tasc: ‘Nama was basically putting land into the hands of people who didn’t have much of an interest in developing it.’ Picture: Fergal Phillips

The amount of land sold to speculators who had no intention of developing it by Nama, the state’s bad bank, in the wake of the financial crash has directly contributed to the current housing crisis, a new report has concluded.

The report, which was compiled by Tasc, the social change think tank, assessed how the supply of housing in Ireland has been affected by land speculation. Its findings are based on an analysis of development ...