Mr. Declan Dunne:

Ironically, there is much agreement and we are not in a battle with the right, the left, the private and public sectors or the Departments. It is interesting that the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government has done more in the past 12 or 18 months to facilitate our delivery than ever before. That is my experience in Respond! at least. We all have to think about the market and economics but we need a functioning housing market. How will we retain young people in our country otherwise? Why should they stay here? How will we get key workers in cities when their rent or housing costs are so high? How will we attract the large intellectual property companies on which we depend? How will we do all that and have an Ireland of which we can be proud if it is not possible to have housing in every part of the market? There is great agreement on such matters, which might surprise people.

Our call is for a cross-party and multi-agency approach and we believe some of the work we have done positions us positively. Our hand is stronger than it was 12 months ago in trying to reverse this problem. We have a common cause. It is important that homes are seen as lifetime homes and such issues are not commodified. The market should not suck out large lumps of profit while providing people with homes. We have found ourselves - possibly unintentionally - in this position because of the HAP, etc. We need a pathway out of that. We should not create another problem for the Department of Finance of yet another social transfer to pay for people post-retirement to have a place to live.