Colette Kelleher (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The market has failed to provide homes for our population. There are 10,000 homeless people, including 3,700 children. We signed off on a report this morning on family and child homelessness, which shows the impact on those children today and for their futures. The LDA proposal is a response to that failure. It is a significant transfer and giveaway, as a Deputy said, of €1.2 billion of public assets. It is off balance sheet and, because of that, there is an interface with the market. There are significant incentives for profits in housing. While the witnesses may not have them today, it would be helpful to have specific proposals for this proposed Bill to mitigate the potential market failure affecting the LDA. How can we move more towards a model such as Vienna's instead of one where the market fails again but now with State assets having been handed over? How do we retain the public interest in the lands that we are transferring? If our guests do not have specific proposals today, I would like to hear them later.