Dr. Kieran McQuinn:

The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government is conducting a housing needs assessment, and we are doing some work for it on that basis in estimating demand. Many people have examined overall national structural demands, but we are trying to estimate those demands at a county or even local authority level, which will feed into the Department's work. It is always fraught with detail when one gets down to a granular level, but that will provide a framework for what is needed in different parts of the country instead of giving rise to ghost estates or building huge amounts of housing in an area where there is no need for it.