Mr. John Coleman:

I thank Deputy Barry. If the Deputy does not mind, I will start with the last question. I totally agree that Cork docklands is a massive opportunity to increase the scale of Cork. It is a huge urban regeneration opportunity. It is almost contiguous with the existing urban fabric beside the other office accommodation and other residential accommodation that has been contemplated in the area. We are in fairly regular in-depth consultation with our colleagues in Cork City Council around the development of the whole area to see what added value the LDA can bring. A lot of work is ongoing there with Cork City Council.

With regard to what will be the first sites to come on stream, I am not trying to evade the question but the issues around the Cork docklands are very complex in the context of infrastructure, levels, flood defences and other infrastructure that may be required, including bridges, and the existing operations of the Port of Cork, which is planned to move out to Ringaskiddy. Without that initial feasibility work being complete, which is in progress, at this point it is difficult to say exactly what will come on stream first. It will depend on a number of factors. This is not to try to evade the question. My comments are to reassure the Deputy that we share his views on this opportunity and that we are placing a lot of focus on that.

Reference was made to this being a privatisation of public lands. Part of the LDA's remit will be, at the appropriate time, to assemble its own landbank, but perhaps not exclusively from public sector sources. There may be a point in time in the cycle of the market or for very long-term land where it might make sense for the LDA to acquire land on the market. It could almost be the opposite effect to the point made earlier in that land currently privately held may become publicly held. It is not all one-way traffic over the long term of the LDA. In ensuring value for public money in our operations, we have to consider aspects such as the point in time of the market cycle we are at when any decision is made, where a particular piece of land is at in its zoning, or the timeframe for when it will become available for housing delivery. It is important to note this.

On the affordability split for the sites we are working on with the local authorities and the Housing Agency, the social and affordable component will actually be higher than the 40% component, which is the Government decision relating to centrally controlled lands that requires a minimum 40% social and affordable housing. When one considers the composition of the LDA's entire portfolio, and given that we will be dealing with local authorities also, it is likely to be quite a bit higher than 40% of social housing on the portfolio basis.

The question of what is affordable and what the term "affordable housing" means is a really good question. Housing at every level is affordable to someone and is unaffordable to others. The LDA is targeting a mid-market product, especially on the rental side, for people who are perhaps locked out of private housing or who are finding it extremely difficult to afford private sector rents, and those who do not necessarily qualify for or cannot access social housing. It is these people in the middle. We have done some work looking at deciles of income and trying to land a rental product for cost rental bang in the middle of an affordability level for people on those incomes. This is what we are targeting. We are not going to build something and then work out what it cost us to deliver and look to get that back in the rental cost, whatever that is. We are starting with the objective of targeting those people and they are the people the Deputy has mentioned: key workers, nurses, fire service workers, teachers and so on, who struggle in the private sector market. This is what we are looking at. We are not doing it in a vacuum in terms of what those people can afford. We are targeting to deliver something they can access without putting them under undue financial stress also.

I hope this address some of the Deputy's questions.