Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

We have 6,000 completed residential units left in our portfolio and they have an occupancy rate of approximately 99%. They are rented by the private sector. There are sometimes frictional vacancies when people move out. We constantly comb the portfolio to see if units are available. We do not have 800 or 1,000 units. Over a period of time, when people leave these rented units and they become free, we might be able to make a few hundred available out of the 6,000. If people are renting units from us, we cannot displace them, as it would add to the housing problem.

Deputy O'Dowd asked whether there should be a central agency. That is a policy question for the Government and I am precluded from talking about it, but I will say something in general terms. When centralised agencies with a specific purpose, such as the National Roads Authority, NRA, are assigned to such tasks, they build up a particular focus on it and make things happen. They learn from their experience as they go along and they get better at it. While I think it may have merit, it is a Government policy decision.

We have heard it said that the units NAMA offered to local authorities were sometimes rubbish. They were not. They might be half-completed housing developments or unfinished housing estates. In 2010, we started with 335 unfinished housing estates in our portfolio. We have put money in and reduced the number to 29. We finished housing estates and put in infrastructure such as landscaping. Some of the pictures there are of housing estates that were unfinished in 2010.

We will agree a site resolution plan with the local authority, put the money in and ensure the accommodation is up to current building standards. We, therefore, do not accept that at all.

One of the biggest issues that we hear about is that sometimes in some of the counties listed for local authority housing, there is not huge demand. We fully accept that but in the larger urban areas, where there is a huge crisis, one of the biggest issues we are hearing about is that there is a high concentration of social housing in those particular areas. Local authorities have an overall policy of approximately 20% social housing and they generally do not want to go above this. That is a policy decision for local authorities or for Government to say "You have to do something different". We offer the units up and if people do not take them-----