Mr. Kieron Brennan:

Where we work with councils it is done on a partnership basis. In many cases, there is co-dependency because the AHBs rely on the local authorities that are the planning authority. The local authorities are the public authorities that decide on housing need. They decide where to build social housing and are responsible for many of the approvals that go along with that. In many cases, we work very well with local authorities.

On the point made about representations, Co-operative Housing Ireland receives representations and deals with them, as one would expect, very seriously and promptly. As a co-operative body, we also have many of our member tenants on our governing structure. In fact, the majority of our board is composed of tenant-members. Therefore, the tenant-member viewpoint is heavily represented in our structure, as it should be.

Mr. Hannigan made a good point. The reversal of the UK decision was wholly dependent on the co-operation of the state sector with various departments, the AHB sector and others, which all came together to overturn the decision, and we need a similar response. The establishment of an interdepartmental group is urgently needed.

Land was mentioned and this is a critical issue. AHBs are dependent on the State, local authorities and others for land and every piece of land is under development, of one kind or another. Aside from this issue, by the end of this year the ability of AHBs to deliver will be affected by a lack of availability of land. It is another example of dependence in the AHB sector.