Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Lemass referred to the transfer of assets in relation to the AHBs. I presume these are the AHBs outside of the 260 he is talking about. What does Mr. Lemass mean by that? Is there a substantial inventory of all of that? I presume the Department is on top of all that.

I mention the over-delivery by AHBs. Mr. Lemass should remember the targets were too low. Many of us would have thought the targets right across the sector were too low. Would the Department be in a position to furnish the committee with the outputs for the AHBs for 2018 and 2019 to date as soon as possible? I do not like comparing the outputs of AHBs with those of the 31 local authorities. If we could have this information on the basis of the 31 local authorities it would be helpful because we can look at that against other statistics. We are talking about over-delivery and that is positive. We want to see that, track it and examine why it is happening. I welcome any additional delivery of houses. Wherever houses are delivered they are houses. It does not matter who is building them. We are talking about homes for people so we should not get hung up on the ideology of the private sector or public sector providing them. I made the point earlier that the local authorities have so much capacity, local knowledge and skill. They do not have the capacity to raise funds as easily as the AHBs for a number of reasons Mr. Lemass would know all about, and maybe that is why local authorities are under-delivering, coupled with the four stage bureaucratic process that takes months to get through sections of. That also frustrates local authorities. If the Department could assist the committee by providing a delivery spreadsheet on the 31 local authorities with delivery targets, the over-delivery of those targets and the breakdown, that would be really helpful to the general work of the committee. I thank the witnesses again for coming here today.