Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That is very positive. It does not surprise me that Mr. Dunne would say that and it echoes the points I put to him. It is important that that statement comes out. What the witnesses have said here is very stark and very worrying. We must say in the loudest possible way that the Government must go to Europe and make it a priority that public and affordable housing would be treated differently under the fiscal rules, because otherwise we could find ourselves in a position where we are not allowed to spend money on public and affordable housing. That is just unacceptable. Arguably, about 70% of people are being left out of the market and there is no chance that the private market will deliver for them. That number is rising, whether it relates to affordable, public or intermediate in terms of controlled rents. That is the space we are in.

The proportions in Rebuilding Ireland are the opposite way around in what it hopes to deliver, as was noted in the opening statement. Would Mr. Dunne agree that is a message? Perhaps the witnesses are careful about what it tells the Government to say and do, but we really need to send out that message.

I am concerned about the pressure the associations are under. I qualify everything by acknowledging they are trying to do the right thing and have a record of doing so. In my area, Dún Laoghaire, it seems that, whether it is the local authority, the Government or whoever else is making the decisions about whether things should go to approved housing bodies or the local authority, a big and growing proportion seems to be loaded on the AHBs. Certainly in my area, there is a reluctance on the local authority's part to do it. I am worried that the pressure is building. Does it put the associations under new pressures? It seems that it does.

A big issue in public housing provision is welfare related matters. Local authority welfare teams are under-resourced and barely able to cope. I suspect that the AHBs have even fewer resources to deal with welfare issues. One ends up with tiers of support because of the pressure being exerted and the lack of resources. It all becomes more fragmented. There is even a problem in arranging transfers. One association might have particular housing stock that has one or two bedrooms and there is the question of whether someone who has children can secure a transfer. It proves difficult because the system is fragmented. It is a big problem and I am interested in learning how the delegates see it. There is a need for much more integration and consistency in the provision of support and resources. There are those who are above the thresholds which are ridiculously low and who are caught in no man's land. Last week I put the following point to representatives of the National Development Finance Agency. They did not disagree, although it was obviously difficult for them to say things, that affordability should be based on a proportion of income and that the affordable scheme should be back fitted to ensure that would be the case, rather than being dependent on site-specific costs, specific servicing costs or whatever else. It is crazy. Something is either affordable for ordinary people on average incomes or it is not. Surely it cannot be dependent on peculiarities, geographical position or specific site characteristics or from where the finance is coming.