Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister knows what I am talking about. Given the performance over the past year, I can see it developing further across the housing sector. I am highlighting it with the Minister and two Ministers of State present. I want them to hear what I am saying because there are serious issues in this regard. While it is public money going into them, the local authority does not have a huge amount of control.

There is also the issue of cherry-picking with what are regarded as the best tenants going into the approved housing body schemes while the ones deemed to be more difficult - perhaps they have a drug habit or whatever - going into the local authority housing. In terms of social integration we are winding up with another form of segregation.

The affordable housing scheme has dried up completely as we know. Does the Minister have plans to restart that? I know he will say that in parts of the country there are houses for sale on the open market that could not be matched with any affordable scheme and that is a reality. In parts of the country that is not the case. There are huge schemes of houses lying empty that are either with a receiver or with NAMA. Could we not take a more imaginative approach?

Many people are caught in what is called the grey area. The income thresholds for local authority housing are too low. A person who earns more than €25,500 is out of the loop and that does not take into consideration deductions from wages. Those thresholds are not realistic and need to be reviewed. There is a cohort of people with income above that and up to €40,000 or €45,000 who cannot buy on the open market and are continuing to rent. I am sure the Minister, the two Ministers of State and the Deputies present recognise what I am talking about. There is a huge opportunity and a huge gap in the market to be filled. If those people could be placed on a loan scheme, there are houses in the constituency where I live that could be bought for between €50,000 and €80,000.

In the part of the world where I live landlords are not interested in RAS. Landlords are getting out of RAS as quickly as they can because they do not want to be on 80% or 85% of the market value.

They can get more than that. There were a number of new RAS contracts last year. Is there a figure for that?

My next question concerns HAP. Given the level of rents, we will end up with the same problem in many parts of the State. We will certainly have the same problem in Laois and Kildare, in terms of the levels of rent that can be achieved on the open market. The Minister will have to be bold and do what he said he would do about rent controls at the weekend, something to which I will hold him over the next year or so because he said he will be in office for more than a year. He will upset some people.

I refer to some of the PPPs that have been entered into. I and others were told at the time it was the only way it could be done and would provide value for money; it could be front loaded and this, that and the other could be done. It has been a noose around the necks of taxpayers and ratepayers. I caution the Minister against entering into any PPPs. We all want new programmes, but we need to be very careful about the long-term costs. The problem is that the officials sitting around the Minister will not be able to tell us the terms of the PPP for next year or the year after because it is commercially sensitive information. Despite the fact that the public will fund it, we will not know its terms. I can show the Minister some awful examples of PPPs that were rushed into during the terms of previous Governments.