Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I am delighted to welcome a re-emergence of local authority house-building programmes as a major contributor to alleviating the problems we have. Incidentally, I am delighted the representatives from the Housing Finance Agency are in attendance. I was instrumental in helping facilitate one of the first Housing Finance Agency loans ever approved. The person who got it is still living in the house they bought with it. That proves the point that the person who started off in that house was quite happy to buy it for a lifetime and remain in it.

I noticed the approved housing bodies are emerging once again. The committee heard from the credit unions several weeks ago who stated they are willing to lend through the approved housing bodies. However, to my mind, this would defeat the whole purpose of the exercise, as they would be then getting involved in the property business in the same way that the lending institutions did before the boom. We do not want to get on that treadmill again.

To what extent can the Housing Finance Agency facilitate local authorities by way of the local authority loans fund? This used to be a fundamental part of how local authorities met the housing needs of those on the housing list. Is it possible to provide funding, directly or indirectly, as opposed to just going through the voluntary housing bodies?

Does the agency agree there is far too high a dependency on private rented property? When the various interested bodies attended the committee over the past few days, reference was made to the fact that there is not much sense in inviting the private residential sector into the business and beating them up once they are in it.

As the Government can borrow from the European Investment Bank at a rate of 0.8%, I presume the Housing Finance Agency can do so too. It then lends that at a rate of 1.75%.

Somebody is taking approximately 1% to 1.75% out of it by way of a handling fee, or whatever it is. I would like clarification of it.

I would also like to know about the structures on and off balance sheet. We have had much discussion on it and it is fundamental to what we are doing. To what extent can the Housing Finance Agency assist the local authorities in their programme by way of co-operatives or public private partnerships? I am specifically side-stepping the voluntary approved housing bodies. The combination of what the witnesses have spoken of would bring in approximately 13,500 houses into the marketplace. I believe the requirement is closer to 16,000. I have held this view for a long time and have brought forward various proposals, as has everybody else around the table, to various Ministers with responsibility for the environment, public expenditure and finance. Given that there are approximately 100,000 families on the local authority housing list, give or take 20,000 or 30,000 depending on who one talks to, it would take five years, at best, to overhaul the system entirely. This is presuming there will be no growth in the number on waiting lists in the meantime. We need to make a more significant impact.

I congratulate the witnesses on appearing before the committee. The way the Housing Finance Agency proceeds is very important. The Housing Finance Agency will determine in a large way the manner in which we will deal with the housing crisis. I suspect the agency is in a position to make a major contribution. However, if it is not in a position to do so, the situation will implode again and we will be back here in a year's time to discuss the same thing. If we depend on the private rented sector, we will be back in two years' time and five years' time talking about the same issue.

We are talking about reliance on the approved housing bodies. They are excellent and are much better than the local authorities for the special needs, sheltered housing and niche market to the area. However, they are not capable of dealing with the main thrust and weight of the requirement of the public housing programme. How will the witnesses respond?