Mr. Brian O'Gorman:

One of the virtues of the social rental housing system that we have is that it applies a differential rent in order that, by definition, the housing is affordable. Rent is based on someone's income and a certain proportion of that income. Ideally, we would also like that to be operative in the cost-rental model so that people would pay according to their income and that would be, by definition, affordable going forward. It is to be hoped that kind of unitary model between social and cost rental will be where we eventually end up. In some ways, it has been a long time coming. A number of people around the table here have argued for a long time for cost or affordable rental, or whatever term one prefers. We need to prove the concept but the organs of the State have, in some ways, come on board now. The rates, in terms of 30% CREL over a 40-year period and the 1.25% loan finance being provided by the Housing Finance Agency, have made this possible.

It could be better; we all want it to be better. We all want the affordability to be much wider so that more households will be eligible for it. We have brought the rents as low as we can. Ideally, doing more to bring them down to within affordable levels is where we all want to be.