Mr. John Coleman:

I thank the Senator. I will take some of those questions. The first point is the transparency piece. This is an area that we have made a lot of effort on quite recently. There have been a few misconceptions around our transparency. If I was to put my finger on it, those misconceptions may have originated with the initial draft of the Bill which, taking the lead from some other recently enacted legislation, implied that there was an exemption for commercial activities of the LDA but that has been dropped. That does not exist. The LDA, including all its subsidiaries, is and will be subject to the full provisions of the Freedom of Information Acts. That is the first point to note.

The second point is that when this discussion was happening around the LDA and transparency, as a board and a management team we said that we want to be transparent and open. We are trying to do the right things. How do we prove to stakeholders that that is the case? Obviously, we will be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. We have our own internal audit. We have these meetings, which are very welcome. We will be subject to the scrutiny of the Committee of Public Accounts, but how do we go further? One step that we have taken voluntarily is to publish our board meeting minutes. We will publish them in batches every number of months. There is a big pile of them on our website at the moment. They are available for anyone to review. One can see the types of issues we are talking about at these board meetings, obviously many of them to do with the business of the LDA, but there are also questions on how we can make housing more affordable, get on more sites and get more homes up and running. We believe that by making those demonstrations of openness and transparency, we will eventually build a reputation for being a very open and transparent organisation. That move, as I understand it, is quite rare anywhere across the system.

The second question was on how we decide between competition for cost rental and affordable purchases. It is very much side by side.

It is horses for courses but the best way to illustrate that might be with Dundrum Central Mental Hospital, which will be a very high density site. We want to make the most of that amazing proposition in what is a very high-rent area currently. We will need to discuss the composition with the Minister, of course, but we will look at that area and decide what is needed there right now. Clearly rental accommodation is needed in the area, which is right beside the Luas line. At the moment, two-bedroom apartments can cost €2,200 per month or more on the open market and obviously that is too much for the target market of middle-income households that we are looking to service.

In Balbriggan, we have another large site, which can deliver approximately 800 homes. The rents in that area are much lower. The development will be lower density which might make it more suitable for affordable purchase. A three-bedroom semi-detached house would cost €285,000 or €300,000. The Balbriggan site might provide a real opportunity to make affordable homes available for affordable purchase. Our approach is very much driven by site characteristics and what is needed in a given area.

In terms of engagement with local authorities, obviously-----