Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would be delighted to speak to Mr. Brook about this at another time. It is one of the main issues that emerged from last week's discussions.

Regarding NAMA's role in this, my view is that the houses are simply in the wrong places. That is why they cannot be sold and are in NAMA in the first place. The problem is that they are not located in places where people, in either the private or social market, actually want to live.

I also have a question regarding the 80% funding. I understand an experiment was done in the Docklands which has worked extremely well, involving a mixture of market, social and voluntary housing. Would pursuing that type of mixed development make the borrowing more secure for the organisations represented today or is there an issue in that regard in terms of their own governance? Would a model which included some element of market rent be more economical? I accept that the organisations' primary function is to provide social housing, but that type of model has advantages not only in the financial sense but also in that it would facilitate a good social mix. Unfortunately, I do not have time to go into the idea of a Government guarantee.