Mr. Patrick O'Sullivan:

It is envisaged that the co-op would afford the opportunity to the original person in occupation with a mortgage the right to acquire title if his or her circumstances change for the better and he or she is able to finance it. This is critically based upon the following hypothesis. The co-operative will be able to borrow this money at less than 2%, which is currently available for 20-year fixed interest money. The National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, raised 20-year money earlier this year at 1.75%. It follows that given the level of security cover and given the cashflow that will come from a revision of the arrangements with approximately 60,000 customers, this proposition will be self-funding in a very short period. It will not be a burden on the State and will not have any fall back on it.

Internationally there are many examples where this type of transaction has been done numerous times. All we are dealing with is simple financial engineering. That is all. There is no rocket science to this and it is straightforward. It is so simple that it has surprised me for years that this has not been done already to solve this awful problem. The way I see this situation, very simply as someone who is retired and on the sidelines, is that almost 300,000 people who are directly involved in these 60,000 houses face the real danger of being evicted and of having their properties repossessed from them unless politicians collectively deal with it. It is must be done because it is unconscionable that it can be left the way it is. It has gone beyond the time for talking about it. We have to deal with it urgently now.

I brought this up several years ago with the then Minister for Finance and I was told that we cannot borrow any more money. That was the sum total of the response. I am saying in this proposal today that the Minister for Finance does not have to borrow any money. This money - the world and Europe are awash with cheap money - can be funded if there is a will in these Houses to go and slightly alter the rules for the European Investment Fund, and we will be pushing, I believe, an open door. Mr. Martin Schulz, who was the President of the European Parliament until 2016 and is now head of the main opposition party in Germany, together with the current President of France, were proposing the alterations that we need to get through the system that would facilitate the raising of a guarantee by that organisation to support the co-op in its venture, therefore guaranteeing that it would be off-balance sheet, which was the main concern of many people in these Houses, as I understand it.

That will solve the major financial problem.