Ms Rita Fagan:

We really appreciate being here because we do not often get to sit at tables like this to discuss large policies and models. I come from a local authority flat complex. Like any other community, people go out to work and pay rent. They do not get their accommodation for free as the prejudice out there suggests. People pay according to the income coming into the home. A lot of our communities have been prejudiced by what is said about them but like many public communities, they live quietly alongside others. For nearly 20 years, St. Michael's Estate has been involved in the battle for homes. The management of the estate was removed. I have been a community worker on the estate for 30 years. When we think about the big picture, we have to support estate management in communities, whether it is cost rental or no rent. That is an element that was taken away and the drugs then took over the city. In the long run, people could not take any more because everyone else, including the police, had pulled out. We lost a publicly-owned, very rich piece of land in the city with 346 homes and 1,500 people on it. If we had gone with the first plan that we sat down on, people would be living in their homes now. Ideology came into it, which meant public private partnerships.

We fought very hard and we have had to change our minds on cost rental and to realise that the land is very valuable. If we were calling for public housing on it, we probably would not get it. We have seen through the work of Mr. Bissett and Ms Comerford in other places that cost rental is a whole other model to consider in seeking to have some public housing and accommodation for others who cannot get mortgages.

We have shifted towards that. After 20 years, the State has a moral duty to build on the site a good and sustainable community that has facilities, green spaces and 300 homes, giving people a chance to have a home. The Chairman might say that I have gone off topic, but we should be building public housing. There should also be new models. Young people who have been exposed to Europe or have travelled know that there are ways other than mortgages.

We have valuable land. The Constitution was mentioned. Many of the communities that have been red marked were poor people living on valuable land. We urge the committee to consider supporting the cost rental model for St. Michael's Estate, given its facilities and green land.