Dr. Larry O'Connell:

Deputy O'Donoghue's concerns resonate with NESC. Our view is that housing needs to be approached as a system and we need to look at it in the round. Today's meeting is focused on one particular issue, that is, affordability. By and large, it is a problem confined to large urban areas due to the demand for housing. That is not to say there are not other problems in other aspects of the housing system and I fully agree with the Deputy that we need to look at those other issues.

When we looked at transport-orientated development, what we were really trying to look at is how we use the land and put infrastructure into areas to make them more attractive. That idea could apply equally to the areas mentioned by the Deputy, Kilfinnane and Askeaton, in terms of their connections to major urban cities and we could consider how they can be made more attractive. I do not mean to not answer the question, but it is not what we were trying to focus on coming here today. The Deputy's question resonates with the fact that housing needs to be seen as a system and that while the problems in areas will be different that does not mean they are any less urgent in terms of being solved.