Mr. Paul Lemass:

In terms of a timeframe, there are a couple of different dimensions to that. The first aspect is that, independent of the reclassification exercise, social housing reform is on the agenda. The Minister is developing proposals in that regard and hopes to bring them to Government reasonably soon regarding issues such as differential rent, income manageability and such like. That is at an advanced stage and the Minister is hoping to move on that.

Separate from that, we need to engage in more detail with the Housing Alliance regarding its proposals. It has put forward detailed proposals. We probably need to get more of the detail behind them. It has a proposal to do away with the payment and availability system and replace it with a differential housing assistance payment, HAP, system. We would need to understand fundamentally how those two are different and how that would have the desired impact of demonstrating less control by Government.

We would also need to get into some more detail about its proposals on choice-based letting, which is an important part of the allocations process but is very much the tail end of the process. There is a suite of steps in allocation before one decides whether to let a property through choice-based letting. We would need to understand that in more detail. One might say there is a twin-track process that we would have to work through. Once we get a definitive position out of either of those that we can act on, that will enable us to bring new information to the CSO that would enable it to consider whether a reconsideration of the classification was appropriate.