Mr. Dave Dinnigan:

A lot of what has been said, certainly on the affordable side, would be a good idea for Dublin as well.

On the repair and lease scheme, we will probably have to listen to the proposals that will come into us and then sense what that reluctance is about. It is about whether we want to further subsidise those schemes to make them so attractive that they grow or whether resources would be better spent elsewhere. That is always the key decision.

We want to develop every strand given the crisis we are in and the waiting list. Earlier Dr. Dáithí Downey made a point about resource intensification into a particular strand. That does not give me the quantum of houses that would really start to address the housing list. It is about getting the calibration right. It does not help if a scheme is not attractive to the market. It might be welcome to make an urban adjustment to the repair and lease scheme to reflect the different circumstances in different construction markets.

The buy and renew aspect is particularly strong and there is another element. We do not want to get into competition with first-time buyers in a lot of areas. That issue needs to be carefully managed. The buy and renew scheme is the more attractive strand to us so continued funding, support and approval from that end would certainly be worthwhile.

It is critical to define a vacancy because it would mean that all of the different data gathers can work off the same definition. The figures that are coming at us include everything from 30,000 down to single thousands.