PRIVATE housing groups from Britain are looking at buying some of Donegal’s ghost estates as an investment.
A meeting between the groups and outgoing Minister for Housing Michael Finnergan took place last month before he left Government.
The then-Fianna Fail Minister travelled to Britain with representatives of the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency to get them involved in his social housing leasing initiative.
The initiative was introduced by Mr Finneran in 2009 as a solution to the lack of funds available to local authorities to build social housing.
But take-up by Irish organisations has been slow so far.
Under the scheme, British associations would buy ghost estates from developers or from Nama and would rent the properties out to provide social housing for the estimated 130,000 households on waiting lists.
In return, local authorities would pay the associations 92 per cent of market rent for the property and they would also receive a rent from the tenant.
A report prepared for the outgoing government found that almost 350 unfinished estates were in need of urgent work to ensure the safety of residents and the public.
A total of 23 of these estates are in Donegal.
Among the companies that met Mr Finneran was Places for People, one of the largest property management, development and regeneration businesses in Britain.
It confirmed it had been in discussions as part of investigations into “new business opportunities and markets”, but said it did not wish to comment further.
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