Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Okay, we may come back to that in a short while. I now want to deal with the housing market. Deputy McGrath also spoke about it. Ms McDonagh talked about the number of houses that she believes are needed to deal with the demand, which is 40,000 but this varies in the different reports and ranges from 25,000 to 40,000. Perhaps Ms McDonagh can explain the reason that Bank of Ireland is at the upper end.

Is Bank of Ireland doing enough to ensure that finance is available to contractors who want to build houses? The reports that I get is that banks are lending, but only lending to the most safe projects. The project needs to be gold standard before one would get funding from the bank and many projects that should have support from the banks are not being supported at this point in time. There is an issue in terms of non-performing loans, NPLs, that may be a factor. We now have legislation going through the Oireachtas, which in my view should not be needed in the first place if banks were providing the necessary loans. What is the increase in the proportion of lending for house construction that the bank has seen year on year and where do the witnesses see the bank going in the next couple of years to be able to meet the demand for the 40,000 houses that must be built each year?