Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I presume the way the amendments will be set up for the fair deal changes would not preclude, for example, an owner entering into a housing assistance payment, HAP, or rental accommodation scheme, RAS, arrangement with a local authority. The reason I am saying that is because obviously then the signposting to make sure that the owner of the property who may want to rent out knows what all of those things are is very important.

One of the concerns I have is around the fact that we know one of the reasons a large of number accidental and semi-professional landlords are leaving is because they have realised how much work it is to be a landlord. It is not a passive investment. It takes a lot of active, hands-on work. Obviously, that is not something the fair deal recipient will be able to do and their extended family members may not as well. Is there also an option, for example, with the provision, whether it is of social housing or public transitional accommodations, for an AHB, rather than placing the owner of the property as a landlord in conjunction with the folks who deal with leasing in the local authorities, there could some leasing-type arrangement, albeit on the shorter time horizon like RAS, where the management of the property is actually taken over by an AHB, for example? That might be a way of facilitating greater ability of people to access the scheme if they so choose.

Again, I do not believe anything in the Department's amendments would preclude that, but signposting and encouraging it might take some collaboration between the Departments. That is my first question.

I will go back to Ms Timmons for my second question, which is on McAuley Place because I was very taken by it when I was in Naas. I do not know if Ms Timmons has been there but it is an old historic building that was handed over by a religious order and then converted into a café, community centre and residential units. Apartments were also built at the back. Most of this was done with charitable funding. It is funded through that weird and wonderful thing, capital assistance scheme-rental accommodation scheme, CAS-RAS, funding. I am sure Ms Timmons is one of the few people in the world who fully understands that. The difficulty for that facility is generating a revenue stream to keep it going. Because the Department does not fund the non-residential element and because there can be problems with having some private renters living in the development to generate some surplus income to recycle back into it, this is the kind of project that probably would not have got off the ground if it had not been for a lot of bending of rules and determined flexibility, which the system does not always allow. What can Ms Timmons say on the Department's future approach to CAS-RAS projects, if such a thing is permissible these days? That would facilitate developments of this type. What is wonderful about McAuley Place and the Respond development at St. John's College is that, by refurbishing existing buildings, carbon emissions are kept low and an important part of the urban neighbourhood is regenerated. However, such projects do require flexibility beyond just a CAS allocation or a capital advance leasing facility, CALF, allocation. How flexible can the Department be with approved housing bodies, AHBs, or other community groups to get these kinds of end results?