Mr. John Coleman:

A good example of the resourcing support we can lend is one of the initial sites in our portfolio, namely, the Dyke Road site in Galway. The Chairman asks if there is anything else we can do in this respect. One of the things we want to do is take blockages out of the system. We want to understand where those blockages are and what we can do to smooth them over. People talk often about procurement as a blockage. That might be in relation to the procurement of professional services or a builder or developer partner. We are seeking to design our procurement frameworks from the ground up for both those segments, namely, the professional and the development side, as slickly and as tightly as possible to take as much time as possible out of it. We are also looking to make those panels available for use by anyone in the public sector, including local authorities. We are hoping to make a meaningful and material improvement to help with mastering those blockages that sometimes exist on the procurement side.

The Chairman said it was unfair to refer to the involvement of developer partners as the flogging off of State land. On the private side, where a private development takes place on sites, we will do everything in our power to ensure delivery happens within the bounds of time commitments. It is not that a site is gone and it is for the developer to do with it as he or she pleases. It is that we will put time-bound delivery restrictions in place for the commercial transactions we undertake with those developers where we engage those practices. I note also the Chairman's point about natural affordability, especially outside Dublin. With some of the sites we have, especially some of the larger ones, including in Dublin, any private sales that happen tend to be at the more affordable end of the scale. The Chairman pointed out that affordability is as big a problem as social housing, which is true. The more supply we have coming into that space, the better, as far as I am concerned, especially where that supply is at the affordable end of the scale.

When one looks at what we are trying to do, competition ultimately takes place in three different areas in the development process. The first is in the buying of the land. The second is within the development piece and the methodologies used to develop sites. The third piece is in the sale of the houses when they are built. Currently, all of the competition is in buying the land because not enough of it is coming out. That is where we will help to put more land in there. That will put the competition into the space of developing the house and selling it. That is where we want competition and we will help with that by supplying land into those segments. That is all I have to say on the Chairman's comments, but I am happy to elaborate if she wishes.