Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to clarify one or two points because I did not speak in the first round. This is cross-party and we normally take the politics out of this committee to get houses built, but I did sit at the national economic dialogue all day where we had various stakeholders across many different sectors and then there was the break-out session for housing and housing delivery. The commonality that was around that table was not to touch policy now because it is working. While it has taken time to get to the point where it is now, they are starting to see those indicators of commencement orders, houses being built and local authorities having targets and the funding to do it, although that has taken time, but they are saying that those indicators are moving in the right direction. I am not disagreeing with anything that was said. I am just putting that out because that is what came from the national economic dialogue. Local authorities have applied for funding for delivery, the procurement process has been changed from eight stages to four stages and other streamlining has happened.

I understand the frustration with St. Michael's Estate and, while everything is being put in place to make things happen, the complexities around that are very frustrating and I accept that. We have to get it right. This is taxpayer's money so it has to be invested in the right manner. Otherwise it would be a misuse of taxpayer's money. There are ongoing negotiations nearing finalisation with St. Michael's Estate and we will bring back the comments about the Minister and the Department visiting the site.

Did Dr. O'Connell wish to come in?