Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for coming to the meeting this morning and giving their thoughts. As a Deputy, I want to see the delivery of social and affordable housing and affordable cost rental properties. People need action and they are looking for us to provide it now. They are sick of announcement after announcement. We need to deliver these for the people.

I have a question for the CCMA delegation. With the legacy issues, is a full write-down of loans required or what must be done to get rid of the burden on local authorities caused by these loans? The opening statement indicated that in the ten-year period to 2008, local authorities delivered over 26,000 affordable homes but 2,000 of those were unsold. What lessons can be learned from this? Has there been an analysis of the 24,000 homes that were sold to see if the tenants felt they had a good or fair deal and what changes would be made if we were in a similar position now? How would the CCMA envisage the process of determining the price of an affordable home under the proposed scheme?

The Housing Alliance statement referenced cost rental prices and the relation to market rates. Would it consider market rates to determine cost rental rates as appropriate? There are areas where current market rates are extremely or excessively high. Should the cost rental affordability calculation be done on the median wage in those areas so as to make these properties affordable for people? There was an announcement for a proposed cost rental scheme on the St. Kevin's site, with rates between €900 and €1,100, but for most people that is not affordable.