Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 30 January 2014

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Land Swap Arrangement in the Provision of Affordable Houses
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works

11:30 am

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for attending. We are in an odd place really because the witnesses are being asked questions which relate to policy matters and they are being held to account for policy decisions made by people who are no longer around. The policy, in and of itself, is quite perverse whereby we overheated the property market, lived off the taxes from that but then sat in a room and tried to figure out how to deliver housing at an affordable price. Such was the time we were in and that was obviously a policy matter which I do not expect the witnesses to comment on.

It seems that once the legal contract was signed, the developer acted fully in accordance with his commitments under that contract, fulfilled every part and the State was left exposed. Would that be a fair summary?