Ms Tina Donaghy:

On the quality of life and well-being issues, we have strong evidence that providing quality accommodation would keep people, especially those who are ageing, independent for much longer. I have strong evidence of people moving into our accommodation and experiencing improvement to their health, well-being, safety and security, as well as sustainability in their finances. They know where they will age and they are free to do that in place. They are not panicking about what will happen as they get older, where they will go and who will take care of them. That is important. Having purpose-built, sustainable and accessible accommodation frees up other social housing for families. There is a cycle in what we provide in strong partnerships and working with local authorities. We know the demographics of an area and the priority needs of that area. There are strongly managed and maintained properties and we know the condition of our stock. We know what money is required to ensure the housing stock can be repaired, renewed and replenished as required.

That is as much a part of the cycle as getting start-up funding.

My organisation has borrowed from commercial banks and the Housing Finance Agency. We have a strong model of funding but this is nonetheless a fledgling process. I have worked in the social housing area all my life, some of it in Northern Ireland and a big part of it in the United Kingdom, specifically London and south-east England. I am now in Ireland. We are new to using this private finance model to deliver public housing; we want to deliver public housing that is sustainable with good design, construction and management. We need assurances that we can continue doing that. We cannot do this in a piecemeal fashion but the tap seems to be getting turned on and off. We must ensure we can get a free flow of funding to allow us to continue to do what we do.

We have resourced our organisations and provided the appropriate training. All the ingredients are in place for us to continue to deliver and meet our growth plans and the elements of Rebuilding Ireland. Until we get the reclassification issue sorted, there is the potential that everything might stop.