Mr. Michael Cleary:

There was a question about supply, particular to the docklands area. I cannot profess to have been involved in the original SDZ or the most recent one and the negotiations around housing supply there. However, my own observations from anything I am involved with down there are - and I think it has been alluded to - that there is a requirement not only from immediate local residents, but from a lot of people coming into that area working in various industries. The society would have an overall concern that Ireland Inc. is not being well serviced by the fact that we are not producing enough apartments, particularly in that location.

I cannot be specific about individual local needs, but one of the biggest impediments so far in the last five or six years in terms of that location, has been the finance cost and the uncertainty around not even the selling price but the rental stream. Long-term security of tenure should be to the benefit of the tenant and there should be certainty for the landlord. In that respect, we have really only been coming to terms with professional landlordism in the last five or six years since a number of funds have bought and invested in Ireland.

To answer that question in a nutshell, first of all, there should be greater densities in brownfield sites because we have to build up and there is no way we can build out. We can leverage the infrastructure there. Second, we believe the mechanism for delivering the affordable element of housing - not the commercial end - should be directed more towards social housing. They should be provided with the means to deliver on that. This might address a query from someone else in terms of how one funds the deliver of supply. One of the biggest impediments to large, not-for-profit housing authorities so far has been their capacity to leverage in and borrow money at low-level rates to develop housing on a real scale. That deals with a technical issue regarding off-balance sheet and balance sheet from the European EIS study on statistics.

In a nutshell, local authorities should probably not be the providers. The providers should be housing associations which have the skill sets and they should be supported. The construction costs for those will be tendered on the open market and that might address some of the issues in general terms. If the land comes at a very low cost to a social housing entity, it can build it for whatever the market rates are by the tendering process. If it has the skill sets and the people within its organisation to do it, that is how one gets transparency. I hope that answers the question.