Mr. Patrick Sweetman:

One question for me was on repossessions. While it is not specifically my area, I agree absolutely it makes no economic sense to go through the entire process and then put someone out on the street who must then be housed again. The dilemma is to have a procedure which distinguishes between those who cannot pay and those who will not pay. The former should be accommodated in every conceivable way and there may be issues such as attachment of earnings or social welfare payments or both or otherwise of whatever amount a court deems could be paid. Those who will not pay obviously must be dealt with.

As to what can be done regarding the landbanks, the first thing would be to make it more profitable or indeed profitable to bring such land to market. The second thing would be to remove some inhibitors. The committee heard earlier about planning and there are some serious inhibitors within the planning process that could be streamlined such as, for example, if An Bord Pleanála had a statutory guideline within which it must make decisions. I understand it is prioritising housing planning applications and a statutory timeframe within which it is obliged to make a decision would be a major move towards bringing through land for residential development.