Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Vice Chairman. We are working on quite a substantial cost-rental scheme in Ballymun at the moment. We have made changes to the cost rental equity loan, CREL, which underpins cost rental. That was done at the request of AHBs as well. I would like local authorities to do cost rental directly. We have opportunities to do that because the funding model is even more advantageous to local authorities because their cost of finance is lower than it is for approved housing bodies. I have changed CREL to 45% and we are allowing upfront costs. That initiative has improved the viability of cost rental and brought in further schemes in the past few weeks since we made those changes. We are at an advanced stage with a substantial cost-rental scheme in Ballymun. I know the Vice Chairman has been very supportive of the scheme. I want to see cost rentals. I think all of us agree we need to see more cost rental right across the board. We have been flexible with how the scheme works so there are real opportunities for the scheme to deliver more. This week, the Land Development Agency advertised its first cost-rental homes for tenants in Delgany, County Wicklow, which is a tenure that did not exist in real terms 12 months ago. We need to build up capacity.