Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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-----rather than to councils. Dr. Lyons has said that there has been some interest from private investors in the social housing market. Will he expand on what he means by that? Does he mean getting involved in it or buying houses up? The position is not clear.

Dr. Lyons raised a number of issues about loan ratios and property prices. He implies in his submission that reducing the cost of building a house would not necessarily address this. There are difficulties associated with lowering the cost of building a house, which is argued for by the construction industry. We would all like to see the costs lowered but how they are lowered is important because it can lead to more simply being loaded onto the profits rather than prices and rents going down. If one wants proof of that, one need only look back on the boom when the costs for developers were dramatically reduced through tax incentives, regeneration and other schemes. It did not lower the cost of a house or rents in 2006 and 2007 when prices were rising dramatically.