Mr. Andrew McDowell:

Only if the revenues that the commercial semi-State body collected were sufficient to cover the cost of debt servicing and in the Irish case, that may be problematic because the level of social rents, unlike in many other European countries which have such models, is simply not sufficient to cover the debt servicing costs. In other European countries, there are social rents, the private sector and a middle ground of affordable rents and tenure, which may be between 50% and 80% of market rents, and that would probably be sufficient to cover the debt financing necessary for the construction of the houses. In Ireland, social rents are well below the 50% to 80% range. It is probably a policy issue for the country as to whether it wants to develop a new middle tenure form-----