Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Farrell and Mr. Knox for the presentation. I wish to express some frustration, which I am sure the ILCU feels, at its having made what I thought was a really important proposal last year but we are still waiting for formal Government response. I acknowledge that and share the frustration. I have a couple of specific questions in the context of strongly welcoming the proposal that the ILCU has made.

While the ILCU has been engaged in discussions with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, I wonder if it has considered or pursued the possibility of pursuing parallel discussions with local authorities and approved housing bodies to pilot the kind of scheme it is talking about. Notwithstanding Deputy Durkan's comments about approved housing bodies, there are local authorities, such as Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council, which have very significant tracts of land but do not have the cash to build because central Government will not give it to them or will not allow them to borrow. They could bring the land to the table. The ILCU could bring the finance and an approved housing body, in conjunction with the local authority, could provide the vehicle for the ILCU to fund. We could get a significant output of houses from that. It might be a way of demonstrating to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and to the Central Bank that it is a viable project. If the witnesses want a couple of suggestions of land and local authorities, I am happy to provide them after the meeting.

I know the witnesses will not be able to tell us their real thoughts on this but I am interested to know what they think the barriers are, either for the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government officials or for the Central Bank, as to why this proposal has not gone anywhere as yet. The social housing strategy was launched the October before last. The type of proposal the ILCU is making is exactly in line with what the Government told us it was going to do. I am at a loss as to why it has not progressed but maybe the witnesses can shed some light on that.

There is a possible way of providing funding to local authorities that would be off the balance sheet. It would require the local authorities to set up housing trusts of their own. They would not be approved housing bodies. They would be municipal building corporations but they would have to be at arm's length from the local authority, such as the way local authorities run leisure centres. I believe that is another avenue worth exploring and if the ILCU has not done so yet, there are some local authorities which are interested in that and we could point the witnesses in their direction.