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

The officials’ heads must get very sore from the constant proliferation of schemes and amendments to schemes. STAR was supposed to do the same thing from the point of view of the LDA. The difficulty the LDA had was that through Project Tosaigh, the all-in acquisition costs were so high that it would not be able to deliver rents of 25% below market rent. As a result, it sought and obtained a subsidy. I know the officials cannot describe it that way but that is more or less what happened. That subsidy is very significant. Apparently we cannot be told what it is per project for reasons of commercial sensitivity but with the first round of the STAR, it amounts to €140,000 or €150,000 per unit. It is in or around that ballpark. It is not that I think this is a good idea, but does it make sense to have two different schemes, namely, STAR for the LDA or any other private provider that decides to get involved, and then equity addition to CREL? As we discussed earlier, if we have different funding models and different rent-setting models, people are moving into something different depending on what is provided. That is very complex. Why put equity on top of CREL rather than access to STAR? I am not advocating that because I think STAR is a terrible idea.