Mr. Pat Dennigan:

Certainly, leasing has its place. That question was about whether direct leasing by the local authority for the provision of social housing could have a benefit, and it could. Anything that would increase the supply of available housing for people who are in emergency accommodation has its place. We need to look at it in those terms. There are structural issues with the way the leasing plan is constructed for approved housing bodies at the moment. These make it difficult to apply the leasing provisions for approved housing bodies at the moment. This is a set of proposals that we could look at to help achieve a better balance in how that works but by all means, leasing by the local authorities has its place in the provision of social housing.