Mr. Daniel McLoughlin:

I have a couple of points to make. The Deputy is right to bring this up. We discussed this privately before. When he was a councillor, two development plans evolved - not the current one but the one before that. For the first time, we introduced a proactive policy to encourage developments around rightsizing in the private sector. That has not taken hold at all, and it is difficult to understand why. Developers are probably more interested in developing at that scale. We cannot stipulate on planning permissions that a certain proportion of homes should be set aside for rightsizing. That is not envisaged in current planning policy at least.

On the rental-purchase side, it is only a hunch or a reaction to the Deputy's question, but I suggest that renting is quite lucrative in his neighbourhood. That is why developers are holding on to a portion of developments for long-term rental in quality locations. Mr. Ward can go through the detail of our scheme, which allows the opportunity for people to downsize and move into local authority-led developments. There is a formula for that. We have a rightsizing homes officer whose daily job is to speak to people about that opportunity on both sides, namely, the social housing side and the private housing side. Mr. Ward can give the statistics as to how that is going. It is going quite well. It is a key part of our housing strategy going forward. As we bring forward developments, hopefully the quality of them will entice more people to engage on that issue. It is an obvious problem. As already stated, on our social side we have an 11% rate of under-occupation. I am sure that is replicated in the part of Dublin that the Deputy lives in, with large houses and large gardens-----