Mr. Mark FitzGerald:

We very much welcome the idea of the Land Development Agency. It is something we want to work with and support, and we concur with the kind of thinking behind it. We see it very much as a social housing delivery agency that works in collaboration and in conjunction with the private sector. We also need to consider that, for house building in the private sector to increase, we have to encourage medium and small house builders to enter the market. Access to finance is a problem for that cohort, and it is a significant issue. The larger entrants to the market are to be welcomed because they can deliver capacity and output.

However, we will not solve the problem with larger builders alone. We need medium-sized and small builders as well. It is incredibly important that we work at that, and finance is a big challenge for them. There is a degree of conservatism built into both the public and private sector as a response to the crisis we had. We need to work to ameliorate that conservatism and for people to be a little bit more forward-looking.