Mr. John O'Mahony:

I refer to the cost of universal access. If one can get it early enough and if it is defined clearly enough, then it should cost virtually nothing. The Part M elements that we already incorporate are the expensive ones, including simple things like the widths of doorways, accessibility and so on. When it is brought down to a much more defined and specific level, if the specification is there, it can be designed in early. Retrofitting is where the cost is. Unfortunately, it goes back to regulation. The developer works to what is specifically on the page, not maximum or minimum standards. If one wants to make change, sadly it involves forcing people to accept it. As we have said so many times, the cost of houses is not the cost of building. The cost of houses is the other 53%. There is a recent study by Housing Agency which looked at our costs against four other European countries of equivalent wealth, standard, etc. Our building costs are pretty well in line with those in France, Germany and the UK. In fact, we are cheaper than the UK. This is all about designing in early.

I refer to retrofitting. I am really interested in retrofitting because I went to the Netherlands and I saw this extraordinary retrofitting scheme, where they took a terrace of local authority houses built in the 1950s. In four days they completely retrofitted a house. I think it cost €80,000. A front wall, a back wall and a roof arrived and they were fixed within a day and a half. Then they went inside and they retrofitted the bathrooms and the kitchens and plugged in a whole new heating system in the back. They did it all in the space of four days. They asked all the tenants on the street whether they were going to buy into it. All of them did, except one who was left out of the scheme. It was paid back through a long-term rental system where the money was deducted from rent over a payback period of something like ten years. It was extraordinary. It was all very carefully designed and the retrofitting brought it up to the standards we are talking about, which is A2. It is just a thought; there are ways of doing it.

The question was asked as to whether public private partnerships, PPPs, were a good idea. I mentioned one. For some reason, there may have been a notion that the developer was being aggrandised, which is a political issue as opposed to a factual one. However, it delivered what it said on the tin. I think PPPs are the most efficient and effective way, assuming the rules are very clear and it is an open book, so if one is dealing with a developer, everything is on the table. The profit margins, all the costs and everything should be out in the open, so everybody can see very clearly what is happening. The difference is the traditional developer can deliver efficiencies that it is very difficult to do under a public tendering system.

In the example I mentioned, there was a competition which decided who one would go with. Having done that, it was possible to define all the elements of that PPP. I think it is a very good way of doing it. I am inclined to believe there has to be a better and more effective way of realising the value of land in the long term rather than giving it away just like that and taking the money. The family jewels should not be given away. If that can be squared, that is a very good idea.

Dublin City Council has advertised a number of PPPs over the years. The same land kept coming up and then nothing would happen. It seemed to founder on the basis of what the PPP format should be. Therefore, let us look at the effective, efficient ones and the ones that worked.

We were just saying among ourselves that the whole issue of housing the aged and health issues to do with the aged mean we probably need a Minister for the aged. If 25% of the population will be over 65, it is so complex and needs such tying together of all the issues, that it probably is deserving of a junior Ministry anyway.