Caít Keane (Fine Gael)
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The witnesses are very welcome. Housing is the top priority in this country at the moment. I am delighted the witnesses are present today. On local authorities, the bank loan scheme and mixed tenure, the latter is important. One must consider how one achieves it. Stability is an issue in local authority estates and voluntary housing estates. If people cannot purchase their own homes they might move away from the area and it will not be possible to achieve stability. How does one achieve stability if one does not allow people to purchase their homes?

Someone mentioned the JESSICA fund. Have any of the groups availed of it, and if not why not? It seems to be a good European fund and it is used in Scotland more than here. What problems have been found with it?

Shared ownership relates to local authorities only, but do the witnesses envisage going down that route? A response has been given to the question on the capital grant system and the loan scheme and how they should be made easier. There is food for thought in that.

The NAMA houses that were offered were located where people did not want to live, yet we have a good rural rehousing scheme. Have the witnesses matched applicants from the rural rehousing scheme to the areas of NAMA houses that were offered? A person who is now on a local authority housing list who is developing an IT business might love to live in a rural area. What matching is done by the various schemes?

A witness referred to a Government guarantee or capital underwriting. That is interesting, but could it lead to a bit of loose accountancy if everything is guaranteed? I am a bit wary of giving guarantees on everything. The best way to watch what a person does is to make him or her responsible.

Reference was made to 40% mortgage write-offs. Would one not have to equalise that across the private rented sector because of the way the Constitution is written?

I read the Clúid annual report. The organisation has 94 employees. Could the other housing associations inform the committee in writing how many employees they have, how many houses were delivered each year and the salaries of employees? We are aware of openness, transparency, responsibility and accountability. Is the information available online? The information is not in the annual report. I looked at income and expenditure. I am sorry for picking on Clúid, which has a good annual report, but it is not listed either on page 54 or in the director’s report. I do not know where the information is but I could not find it. Such information should be available online from all the organisations. I have said the same to every voluntary organisation that comes before the committee. The housing ombudsman is the local authority and not the Private Residential Tenancies Board. If rules are introduced for the PRTB to implement and the local authority rules are more lax, a local authority tenant will have more rights. I would be reluctant to say that everyone should be governed by the same yardstick. There should be important rules for each one.