Mr. Graham Doyle:

Yes. We are increasing the level of direct build and that will continue forward into next year. For example, next year we are looking at a direct build programme of 9,500. We are seeking to increase that and to change the mix in terms of delivery across the programme, which is challenging. There is no question but that as we ramp that up, we are going to have to play a very careful role around local authority delivery and through the other streams as well.

In terms of the concerns about construction activity in this year that have been mentioned, there is no denying that time was lost around that. We work closely with the local authorities. I think the housing delivery co-ordination office is playing a really strong role at this point in time in working with each local authority and the other stakeholders to try to maximise delivery this year and into next year. Just trying to minimise the impact of that delay, and looking at the construction status report for quarter 2, it showed us that delivery was below target, obviously, at that stage. There were almost 1,500 built, acquired or leased homes at that point of the year. They cycle of delivery, which has surprised me in terms of coming to the Department and I would have really expected delivery across a year, but it does actually get back-ended, just the cycle tends to get back-ended, into the latter part of the year. That profile for completion in quarter 4, heavily weighted towards quarter 4, is there. We are hopeful that we will get much of what we sought to deliver this year and the numbers are relatively encouraging. We will not quite make where we had hoped to be.