Mr. Brian O'Gorman:

We developed one scheme in Sandyford with a mixture of private and social housing. Of the 58 units in the scheme, 34 are social and 24 are private. That works extremely well and there is no problem with demand on either the social end or the private. Indeed, they cross-subsidise each other very well, so to speak. It sounds perverse in some ways but where we take out loans, they are backed by a payment and availability agreement. We make the property available to the Government or local authority, which puts a payment agreement in place. When a lender looks at that, the guaranteed payment is worth a lot more than a private sector letting. A private sector tenant might leave in a year, for example, and there might be voids in the leasing, but the payment and availability agreement is guaranteed. In that sense, it is a better bet for a financier.

Clúid has developed housing using the current funding model. That model is not ideal but it is there to be used and it can be made to work. The difficulty with a Government guarantee is it would mean the Government having to take debt onto its balance sheet, which is simply not going to happen. We need to work within the current framework.