Mr. Brian Corr:

No. Under the investment into approved housing bodies there is capacity in the regulations for around €700 million. I will have to come back to the Deputy on what is in the new consultation in regard to mortgages. I am told by my colleague that the current version of the consultation paper allows for about €800 million in mortgage capacity.

I would like to comment on one other aspect of the implementation group's report. When we made recommendations to the Central Bank in regard to long-term lending, we recommended that it review the 25-year limit on mortgages. Under the regulations, there is a 25-year limit in respect of credit union mortgages. As stated by Mr. Johnson and Mr. Farrell, credit unions are currently doing much lower loan to value lending and much shorter maturity lending. Notwithstanding this, we felt that reviewing the 25-year limit was appropriate but the Central Bank did not do it. We thought it was appropriate because no other provider in the market is tied to the 25 years. In the statistics for the first time buyer lending, a good proportion are beyond 25 years. In terms of the lending to, say, civil servants who wanted to get a 26-year loan, they could not go to their credit union for it. I appreciate the credit unions are focused much more at a different niche of mortgage lending for now but in terms of future proofing it was something that as a group, we thought that was worth recommending.