Ms Geraldine Tallon:

In the market of the time, the housing units involved were worth €77.6 million. The Government's objective was to make housing affordable for people who could not afford a home from their own resources. The Government's intention was to subsidise the provision of housing for people who would otherwise not have been able to afford to buy.

The subsidy was met or managed by way of a land swap arrangement. The Government had decided that the means of releasing value was to release State property.