Mr. Seamus Coffey:

We would echo the concerns of the Department of Finance and would not be in favour of such hypothecation. It does not tend to work. Money is funded but if the same money came from the same source and is allocated to another source, by and large the appropriate thing to do is consider the overall budgetary situation one is addressing. There is no shortage of cash or funding within the Irish budgetary position. The National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, is currently managing close to €20 billion in cash terms in the Exchequer account. Much of that is somewhat precautionary such as for bond redemptions that are coming down the line. If there are banking asset sales the proceeds would feed into the overall cash holdings that are managed by the NTMA.

I do not, however, believe that it would be appropriate to hypothecate, as the Deputy has said. Money is raised from the sale of assets and if it was to be spent on housing, or in a sense put it on the sidelines of the overall budgetary measures, I think we should be looking at the totality of what we are doing. If one considers the Government accounts and the allocation to capital spending, one can see that it is increasing significantly. In 2014-15 it was a little over €4 billion and by 2020 it will be more than €8 billion. In just five or six years the nominal amount will have almost doubled and Ireland will have gone from being a relatively low government spender on public infrastructure in EU terms to being up towards the top. There has been a large allocation. Perhaps one difference in Ireland compared to other EU countries is that their governments tend not to spend directly on capital housing projects. They do have public housing but in the main it tends to be done through approved housing bodies or housing associations.

I do have the long-term view, as referred to by the Deputy, that the cost rental of the older stock, which was produced and constructed at a lower cost, is subsidising the construction and renting of newer stock and could on average have a dampening down effect on the rents and costs in the housing system. That seems to be more successful than what we are doing, but the issue is to have the long-term view and if we do have housing units within the system that they are not sold off. It cannot work if older units are sold.