Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to return to Deputy Ó Broin's comments on the debt space and the answer given by the witness, particularly the ability to make a judgment as to whether the agency could increase the amount of debt. Effectively, if one short circuits the answer from the witness, as I understood it and which would worry me, one is looking at maxing out the State's credit card again if one goes down that route. The witness is talking about looking at the savings that are available and possibly looking at how borrowing can be increased to spend on housing. Is that exactly what the witness meant by that answer, that effectively there would be an increase in borrowing? We must be conscious of that and we must understand exactly where we are going with it.

I have a query on another matter. The witness mentioned the ability to set up a vehicle that would examine getting the voluntary housing associations involved and the way in which that would work, as distinct from the current situation where they access funding through the Housing Finance Agency, HFA. My experience with the voluntary housing associations, while not quite as negative as that of Deputy Durkan, is that they are not interested in ramping up to anywhere near the area one would need them to be to address the problem. There is a variety of reasons for that. Most of them just do not wish to do it; they do not want to go there. How does the witness think any other vehicle would achieve that to bring them on board?

I was very interested in the French model that was mentioned, because my understanding is that EUROSTAT is no longer interested in anything being off-balance sheet. With due respect to ourselves and to the imagination of very creative people when it comes to trying to keep stuff off-balance sheet, I believe the starting premise from which EUROSTAT addresses the problem is that it is not going to grant that and no matter what we say, that will be the answer that comes back. Would the witnesses agree with that assessment, that there is effectively an almost total block on the potential for something to come from this country in this area and be viewed as an off-balance sheet vehicle?