Mr. Kevin Kelly:

Probably from the Department's perspective, it made funding available at the end of last year for the acquisition of land. What we are finding are just practical difficulties in terms of either lands not being available or, where they are available, constraints or issues which we feel are difficult to surmount. We do not want to run into a scenario where we are trying to develop something and someone asks, "How did you end up buying that?", or a scenario where a landowner has an unrealistic expectation, perhaps because the local authority is buying the land, as to what the value of the land is. At the end of the day, we have to be able to deliver a certain number of units on that land at an appropriate price, whether it be social or affordable. Therefore, while in theory one would expect that it should be easy enough to acquire land, in practice it is a little more difficult.