Mr. Mel Reynolds:

Along the same lines, what really surprised me when preparing for this meeting was the extent of State involvement in the private housing sector. Excluding the help-to-buy scheme, which further increases the number of State subvented units, something like 53% of all privately built houses that are estate homes and apartments built for sale were in some way subvented by the State. They were either funded by the National Asset Management Agency or purchased as turnkey purchases. Between approved housing bodies and local authorities, more than 2,000 privately built houses were purchased from the private sector last year. If we were building 50,000 units per year, that level would be fine but only 13,000 units were built last year. Not only is the cocktail of State policies inflating the private sector market, if one includes the HAP scheme, something like one third of all private sector tenancies are State subvented as well. An enormous amount of State money is going into housing and is inflating the private sector market. The State is competing with private sector buyers. It is very worrying, particularly as we may be heading into a stalled or a downturn period shortly. Any initiatives that are being considered should be looked at through the filter of what happens when new housing supply drops. What happens then?