Mr. Conor Skehan:

I thank Deputy Murphy for sparing me having to answer detailed questions before I have spent time in the agency. If there is anything the agency can do to come back with information to the committee, we would be more than happy to make ourselves available.

Deputy Murphy has got to the heart of the issue on housing. Traditionally, there has been a tragedy in so many sectors to do with our built environment where things are looked at in silos rather than horizontally. These include the issues to which Deputy Murphy referred in regard to sustainable communities and the location of houses. Their planning and connection to shops and bus routes are as important as the provision of the bricks and mortar and the roofs over people's heads. Real sustainable development is about the totality of the energy commitments someone makes because of his or her choice of where to live. In Deputy Murphy's own constituency there is plenty of difficult-to-reach newly built housing estates which are well outside the bounds of existing settlements. We now see that people are committed to highly unsustainable modes of transportation to get themselves to basic facilities. In turn, those issues have deep, long-term implications as communities age and have less access to mobility. A deep part of moving forward with good planning of housing is to consider the real life cycle, not just of a house but of its residents. We must ensure that people's homes are fit for purpose for the entire cycle of their lives. We discovered in work I participated in at the DIT that the majority of people who are over 45 years of age are already living in the house in which they are going to die. Very few of those people when they bought their house had considerations other than how near they might be to their children's schools. In fact, they should have been thinking about how dependent or independent they might be in the absence of a car in regard to social services etc., when driving became more difficult.

On vacancies and the potential role of NAMA, I have been briefed that there is detailed interaction taking place between the agency and NAMA to examine those issues, including land banks. The papers being prepared for board meetings show that detailed, ongoing and lively discussions are taking place on those issues. The core issue with NAMA, as Deputy Murphy well knows, is that the overbuilding of housing took place where there was never going to be any demand. Those parts of the country east of the Deputy's constituency are areas where the greatest demand already exists. We are already seeing through increased rents housing pressures building up in east Leinster, where 50% of the population lives. There are no broad-brush solutions that can be applied equally across the State. A great deal of prudence and evidence is going to be required moving forward. One of the delights of the housing agency is that it comes closest to the type of thing we see in governance in Britain where think tanks advise on policy on the basis of real evidence. It is the closest equivalent I have come across here to that type of independent, evidence-based, research-led facility being available to the Government. Hopefully, it will make a contribution towards helping to avoid the mistakes we have made in the past. Perhaps we will have a more sensible approach to housing in the future.

The intimidating thing about the agency is that it is full of people who know a great deal more about housing than me and who probably always will. All I can do is be the conductor of an orchestra which includes a group of very bright, talented and hard-working people. If I can do that, I will be doing my job well.