Mr. Barry Quinlan:

The Department has been looking at this proposal from our perspective, as have the Department of Finance and the banks from their side of things. We did significant work on it ourselves and in conjunction with the Housing Agency.

We were looking at it in the Department and the Department of Finance and the banks were also looking at it from their perspective. We were doing significant work on it ourselves and with the Housing Agency. We would have measures that would bring affordability in the medium to longer term, and what we were looking at from a policy perspective was whether one could boost supply in the short term on the basis of it being a demand-led scheme designed to turn potential demand into realisable demand and through that process then to boost supply. It would give assurances to the construction sector that if it builds homes that they would actually be sold. When we look at the planning permissions that have turned to commencements and been sold, they are based on a certainty around demand, whether that is demand from the private sector in terms of purchase or from the State in terms of social housing, student housing and other housing. The housing that has worked to deliver the supply tends to be based on a high certainty of demand. That linkage was a key policy consideration.

Significant analysis has been carried out. That is very much part of the deliberative process at the moment. The Minister has yet to finalise his proposals in terms of the underlying detail of the scheme. That is close to finalisation, but it has not been finalised yet. There would be commercial sensitivity in terms of the various elements. I do not think it would be appropriate to release those at this time, but that may change as time passes and decisions are made. The funding has been set aside so that this could be delivered, and units could be delivered this year. We are working now with the various stakeholders to put in place the details of the scheme, but the Minister has yet to sign off on them. This is designed as one of the overall suite of measures.