Mr. Eugene Cummins:

It is important to highlight that the scale of the problem is enormous. There is a huge shortage of housing and I do not have to tell anyone here that. At the time that NBA was assisting, the scenario was different, as was the scale. Indeed, it was a different society. The private sector was engaged and local authorities were building houses and had been doing so for decades. The problem was not of the same scale as it is now.

On behalf of local government, I would like to say that we are in the business of providing social housing for those people who are not in a position to meet their housing needs from their own resources. I would not like anyone to think, in terms of our comments on the private sector, that there is any attempt to transfer ownership of the responsibility for providing social housing to the private sector. Clearly, it is our problem in terms of meeting the housing needs of those who cannot do so themselves. The main point is that we need the private sector to build houses for those who are able to afford them, as it did in the past, which will free up units in the private rented sector for HAP housing, rent supplement, leasing and so forth, as happened in the past. It is important to point out that local authorities managed this issue in the past when we were building estates but the scale of the problem that exists now is beyond the capacity of local government.