Housing Minister James Browne ordered the Peter McVerry Trust to ‘immediately’ hand over 60 properties across the country, documents obtained by Extra.ie show.
The demand was part of the State’s efforts to ‘recover’ the €15 million spent bailing out the housing charity. In documentation that was prepared for Minister Browne in early May, officials in his department said that 62 houses had been selected.
This included 39 properties in Dublin city; nine in Limerick; three in Kildare and Roscommon; two in Cavan and the Fingal area; and one in Mayo, south Dublin, Tipperary and Westmeath.
The minister wrote to the trust’s chief executive, Niall Mulligan, in May to say: ‘I am hereby instructing the Peter McVerry Trust to immediately undertake the transfer of unencumbered properties to the ownership of the relevant local authority in each case, up to the value of €15million.’
He instructed him to begin transferring these properties to local authorities for use as social housing.
The Government agreed in November 2023 to provide €15million in ‘exceptional funding’ to the Peter McVerry Trust after the charity found itself in financial crisis, driven by cashflow troubles and debt issues.
The money was paid on a phased basis between December 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024, and came with a range of conditions related to improved financial management and governance.
As part of the deal, the Housing Minister of the time reserved the right to recover the value of the bailout ‘by way of transfer of assets, including unencumbered land/properties, or by way of the creation of a second charge over already encumbered property’.
Department of Housing officials noted: ‘Upon ministerial instruction, the trust will proceed with the transfer of these properties to the relevant local authorities for use as social housing.’
An Oversight Group and a Capital Sub-Group were set up within the department to monitor and assist in the implementation of the agreed conditions attached to the funding.
The Capital Sub-Group has worked with the trust in recent months to identify ‘unencumbered’ – or debt-free – properties owned by it which could be transferred to local councils.
Department of Housing officials recommended to the minister that he write to the trust ordering it to proceed with the transfer of ownership of these properties to the relevant local authorities.
Civil servants said that the subgroup had developed a process to facilitate the charity in notifying the Department of Housing when each individual transfer was completed.
The recommendation was submitted to Mr Browne on May 6 and was subsequently approved.
On May 29, he wrote to Mr Mulligan instructing him to commence the transfer process. Mr Browne reminded the charity’s chief excessive of Condition 7 of the Government bailout ‘which stipulates that the minister reserved the right to recover the value of exceptional funding provided’.
Mr Browne informed Mr Mulligan that the trust will be obliged to provide ‘detailed information on each property [transferred], including the agreed valuation between the trust and the local authority’, which will be added to a central database.
‘This will allow my department to monitor the recovery of the exceptional funding, up to the value of €15million,’ he wrote.
The Department of Housing declined to specify if any properties had been successfully transferred by the Peter McVerry Trust to local authorities.
A spokesman for the department said that it has ‘engaged extensively with the trust in relation to the conditions attached to the exceptional funding.
Significant progress has been made by the trust in improving its processes, and regular updates are provided to the department in relation to the ongoing work in this regard.’
The spokesman added: ‘Due to commercial sensitivity, we cannot identify individual properties as part of this process. Tenants are not affected by these transfers and will remain in situ.’
The Peter McVerry Trust was contacted for comment, but did not respond prior to publication.
The charity, which owns, leases or manages 1,616 housing units across the country, has been beset by a raft of financial problems in the last two years, which it has previously blamed on ‘overextending itself’ as its work has expanded in recent years.
A damning investigation found that no explanation was given for transfers of funds worth millions of euros at the trust.
The probe by the Charities Regulator, published last November, also found failures in board oversight in the management and administration of the housing charity.
It highlighted a lack of appropriate financial controls with which the board could exercise control over the affairs of the housing charity.
Among many concerns, the regulator also found a failure to adhere to ‘donor intention’ in how restricted funds were used.
The report said the trust’s financial statements for the year ending December 31, 2021 and the following year had recorded transfers from restricted funds to unrestricted funds of €1.5million and €7.3million respectively.
‘No explanation was included in either note to indicate the reason for the transfers,’ it said.