Mr. John O'Connor:

On winners and losers, if consistent differential rents were brought in throughout the country, some tenants would see their rents increase and some would see theirs decrease. For example, in the area of South Dublin County Council rents would increase, but they would decrease in Wexford County Council's area. Those are just two examples of how tenants would be affected. From the perspective of local authorities, South Dublin County Council's rental income would increase while that of Wexford County Council would decrease. Introducing this measure would have effects on both tenants and local authorities, but it is needed. It is very important.

With regard to our dealings with the banks, we have dealt with all of the banks and they have been helpful. One bank I would compliment is AIB. We have had a lot of engagement with AIB and it has been supportive in respect of the provision of housing.

Deputy Ó Broin asked a number of questions. Building up the public housing sector, including both social rental and affordable or cost rental homes, is critical. We need to build that up on a big scale if we are to assist households throughout the country. Many households will not be able to afford to buy, but we need to provide them with affordable and secure rental accommodation for the long term.

On the site servicing fund and the question of land ownership, it would be ideal to maintain State control of State lands because there is a danger that we could develop it and that it could then be lost to the State. From the Housing Agency's perspective, where we have transferred lands, we have put in controls in respect of retaining the land for social housing or, in some cases, cost rental housing. That can be done in two ways. There can be conditions as covenants in the title. A much stronger way is to provide a long-term lease. One can include many controls in that case. We need to tease out how the State can retain long-term control.

It is easy to do with rented housing. When we get to home ownership, however, it is more difficult to have a lease in place owing to the common law system and our legislation and rights with respect to freehold. If we are to utilise State lands on a large scale over the next number of years, we need to think very carefully about how we retain appropriate control from the State perspective. That is what a number of countries do. Very specifically, the Netherlands is one example where the state never sells the land. There are various forms of leases backed up by the legislative system. Controls are very important and from the Housing Agency perspective, we have been trying to put those controls in place, in some case with an amount of resistance. We get many solicitors in trying to convince us otherwise but we have been putting those in place.

I can give some details on the Enniskerry Road and Mr. Baneham can elaborate. On the Enniskerry Road in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area, there is a site where there will be 155 apartments and houses, of which 105 will be for social housing and 50 for the cost-rental scheme. We are very interested in getting the cost-rental scheme operating. The site has been provided at no cost to two housing associations, Respond! and Túath, and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has been very involved. At this point, it is ready to commence on site and tenders have been submitted. It is a question of giving an instruction to the contractor to commence. We want to get the rents on the cost-rental side as low as possible. The site has been provided at no cost and we have been looking at how the funding of the site and the long-term finance can be got with as low a cost as possible. We are looking at every way to get the rent on the cost-rental housing as low as possible. In the long term, there would be very low increases in rents as they would only relate to maintenance costs. There will come a time, after 25 years, when rents could be reduced very significantly as borrowings will have been paid.

Most countries manage to get down the cost, even at that initial stage, by looking at funding over 50 years. There might also be secondary State loans with favourable terms that would not have to be paid off for a period. We need to develop the cost-rental sector and provide rental to a much wider cohort. That would be in public ownership or the ownership of not-for-profit organisations like the Ó Cualann alliance.