Mr. David Walsh:

The credit unions have been exploring how they can work with the Irish Council for Social Housing, ICSC, which is a representative body for the approved housing bodies, to provide funding in the same way the Housing Finance Agency or other banks are privately funding the construction, management and maintenance of some of these programmes. The Central Bank needs to look at the requirements and steps and whether certain minimum levels are met. Earlier this year, the Central Bank amended some of its rules. In parallel with this, the Department is not in the job of telling credit unions that they must loan to approved housing bodies but we did make sure we engaged and facilitated dialogue between the approved housing body sector through the ICSC. We provided core research funding, through innovation funds, to the approved housing body sector on how a special purpose vehicle could be developed that could avail of credit union funding.