Mr. Jerome Casey:

I wish to add a point following Deputy Mulherin's comments and what my colleagues have said. We need to recognise the reality that tenant purchase has been a significant element of housing policy and practice for the past 200 years. From my point of view the issue is the capacity of those in the sector to be able to sell off some of the assets they own which they have acquired through Government grants. If that is Government policy, it has not applied to us to date. As Mr. Brook has said, we have to get the value return on assets rather than sell them at discount. This is because we are operating on a small scale compared to the large stock transfers that have taken place in the United Kingdom and so on.

Alongside our work the Department is undertaking work. Mixed tenure is important. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is to undertake a review of the provisions of Part V of the Planning and Development Act. I believe that legislation should not be amended. It should be fully endorsed and implemented by local authorities because it enables mixed tenure provision of social housing, which has been beneficial and it works. Much of our housing is in mixed tenure schemes and there is no difference between the social housing and the owner-occupied housing. That is an important policy instrument.

Reference has been made to what is a real risk. There is a crisis in the provision of social housing as per the absolute reduction in capital grants. The expectation of the State is that we and our boards take the risk of borrowing private finance to acquire new units. As the chairman of my board has outlined, there are serious difficulties in respect of us being able to undertake this given the scale of what is required and the grants that we may get from the State to complement private finance.

Policy has evolved. Under the European model of social housing provision housing associations are the main providers and are designated as special providers. If this is what the Government wants us to do then we need to have the instruments to be able to deliver it for the State and its citizens. This is not to belittle local authorities; they have multiple and varied functions. We are more or less specialist housing agencies. This is what we deliver; it is our main core business alongside facility services. We do not have responsibility for rates, roads, water or the various other elements for which a local authority is responsible. I am suggesting that the change of role referred to is slowly evolving. The policy instruments to enable stock transfer or to enable us to have a greater role are not as developed as we would like them to be.