Dr. Ronan Lyons:

Hopefully, regardless of the side - majority or minority, whichever - one contribution that the Housing Commission will make is that it puts to bed that idea that there is any issue or challenge to Government taking the actions that are needed. Anyone can read both reports and see that is not an issue.

To answer the Chair's first question, he asked what we would be suggesting and what is the legislation that would help. The key bit for us, and we refer to it in the first paragraph of our proposed wording, is that we need a long-term systemic plan that adequately addresses the housing need that is there. That is something that would be, related to the rest of the commission's work, medium- to long-term in making a healthy housing system. The parallel was with climate change, which is a different type of systemic challenge but one facing the State nonetheless. These long-term plans need to be put in place. They would engender certainty and give clarity around what the medium- to long-term Government policy is. For me, at a high level, that was the most important contribution this area could make.