Mr. Ray Fanning:

On trying to provide housing, one of main thrusts of our submission, I raise the Government's mortgage-to-rent scheme, which tries to keep in their own homes people who have experienced mortgage arrears difficulties for the last two years. Of 1,330 applications for it, only 60 have got through in the last two years. It is a very low number. Some 1,270 families who have applied for it are waiting to hear if they can progress. At an average of €100,000 per house, that is €127 million. The emphasis is on getting affordable housing programmes, AHPs, such as ourselves to try to come up with that money to buy. We have voluntarily said we will participate in the scheme but how do we come up with this €127 million unless we unlock some of the difficulties around taking the risk? We have willing investors but we must take some of the risk out of it for them.

In the three years from 2008 to 2011, we were developing 1,550 houses with no difficulty. We have our own architectural design teams and quantity surveyors. We are quite skilled at developing these houses and are ready to do it, but we must unlock some of the existing difficulties to provide more security for the people who are willing to give us the money.