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

My problem is how this benchmark is established. I apologise to the Chairman, but the only reason I am pressing this is because local authorities must vote on it in the coming weeks. The information is time-sensitive. I go back to what is unique about the proposal. It is a 25 year management and maintenance agreement, as I understand it, so somebody somewhere will calculate what he or she thinks it would ordinarily cost a local authority to maintain a unit over 25 years. My issue is with regard to elected member engagement in setting the benchmark because this is not a new operation. I will not press it any further. If the Department is looking for the support of elected members of local authorities - and I am not, as Mr. McCarthy well knows, seeking to delay any social housing delivery - it will need to find a mechanism, whether through the housing managers, the strategic policy committees or private briefings, to satisfy members that the way in which the public sector benchmark is calculated is acceptable to them. I say this with no disrespect to the officials of the National Development Finance Agency or the Department who will recommend it. I urge Mr. McCarthy to look at this.