Mr. John O'Connor:

The Housing Agency co-ordinated the response. We worked with NAMA. Indeed, we provided staff to NAMA to identify all of the residential properties. Having identified the available properties in NAMA's loan portfolio, the Housing Agency approached each local authority with a list of properties in each area and asked the local authorities to decide which of those properties they considered suitable for acquisition for social housing. We liaised with each local authority and acted on their responses. If we thought the local authorities were rejecting properties we thought suitable, we pushed them on that. However, at the end of the day we accepted the view of the local authorities. They had to be supported, and in my opinion they took reasonable decisions.