Mr. Ned Brennan:

The role of local authorities vis-à-vis approved housing bodies has fundamentally changed since the housing statement of June 2011, where there has been a movement away from local authority provision to provision by the voluntary sector. That can work well but not in the absence of a comprehensive national housing policy. We are going back to the same position we have had for decades where it is a hotchpotch, with one person doing one thing and someone else doing another. There is no comprehensive strategy behind this. We firmly believe there must be a Green Paper on housing that brings in all the elements and partners in housing, such as local authorities, the Government, voluntary housing associations and the expertise that exists in many agencies. We could then develop a comprehensive housing strategy that we could all work towards.

The reason the programme has been moved away from local authorities to voluntary housing associations is because the Government does not have the money. It does not have the capital funding to invest in housing that it had previously. Voluntary housing in the entire State might have a stock of 24,000 units and the Government is claiming it has invested in that over the past 20 years and asking if there is any equity to be tapped into there that can be used to build more houses. The reality is that our capacity is limited. Voluntary housing in Ireland is tiny compared to in Britain and we are minuscule compared to any European country. Our ability to leverage capital from private financial institutions is limited. Respond is the largest housing association and with our balance sheet, the greatest number of new houses we could deliver in any year would be 200 at an absolute maximum.

Leasing only works in large cities. There are very few voluntary housing associations that do it; a few of the larger ones have taken on a couple of leasing projects over the past year but the reality is that it does not work economically for housing associations. I am not talking about making a profit, but about breaking even. Housing associations are charities and have the requirements of the Charities Act to fulfil. The assets of the organisations cannot be put at risk and for any housing development outside the large cities of Dublin, Galway and Cork, leasing does not work. The payment and available agreement is not adequate to meet the capital and interest repayment over a period of time.