Mr. Ed Farrell:

We were following through from the social housing strategy document, where the approved housing bodies were the favoured entities being empowered. I would assume that lending to an arm of the State, if it was done directly - there are indirect ways of doing it. The State financial vehicle, which was the first option in the social housing strategy paper, was to be created if it could be kept off the State balance sheet. Our understanding of late from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is that they are not going to be able, or have not yet been able to construct a vehicle in such a way that it would be off balance sheet.