Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for their presentation. I welcome Mr. O'Kelly's comments on funding and loans being made available to local authorities and private developers in the form of a bond or whatever that might be. When does he expect that to be initiated? When will the funds be available? Private developers cannot access funds at a competitive rate in the marketplace but they need to do so. The alignment with investment funds and Government funds is not meeting the requirement. The rates being charged are not better than the mezzanine funds available currently. It is paramount and essential, therefore, that this process begins.

We all acknowledge, as do all stakeholders, that housing and homelessness is in crisis and we are in an emergency. We also acknowledge on the basis of what the NTMA and others have said that conventional methods and funding models, especially in the context of the fiscal rules outlined by Mr. O'Kelly, are no longer viable. There has to be an overhaul and there has to be an extraordinary investment in housing in order that this issue will be resolved in a manner that we can all stand over and be happy about.

National Asset Residential Property Services Limited, NARPS, has the potential to be successful in its own right within the confines of NAMA and the constraints associated with it by virtue of the overarching legislation associated with the agency. That can be progressed and that is something for the Government, ourselves and everyone else who has an interest in seeking to ensure the social dividend expected from NAMA in addition to the commercial dividend can be achieved. That is one avenue by which it can be achieved but NARPS has served a purpose, as Mr. O'Kelly acknowledged, in so far as it has provided a recognition that there is potential for such a vehicle, perhaps a housing authority, that the NTMA could fund, which could then act as a means of supplying further funding, purchasing units or building units through local authorities or AHBs and even colleges. We need to stop talking about this and put it in place. We need that to be initiated as policy and driven by Government.

I do not appreciate committee members, with the best will in the world, asking the officials to come back to us. The Government has to take this by the scruff of the neck on foot of the committee's deliberations and the debate that has been going on for so long to bring forward a policy and the means and methods by which this issue can be addressed in its first 100 days, as it said itself. We are feeding into that process. It is incumbent on the committee to acknowledge that this is a way in which this can be addressed and in which extraordinary funding can be channelled down the right avenues I acknowledge Deputy Durkan's love affair with local authorities and the conventional ways and means by which they sought to address the housing crisis. Unfortunately, the rules and regulations governing the spending of public funds does not allow us to make the capital investment needed to address this.

That is the bottom line.