Mr. Hugh Brennan:

-----and we would build 200 top-quality houses there for people in the area. How about a policy change in the IDA? Where it is suitable, let us make 20% of IDA land available for affordable houses.

In terms of our finance arrangements and relationship with the bank, AIB came on board at the start and has been very supportive of what we are doing. We told it that we are getting interest in loan notes through which others want to invest in us. These are at a maximum interest rate of 4%. Those investors' rates range from 0.5% to 4%, because some of them just want their money to have a social impact. In fairness to AIB, it brought down the interest rate it was offering to us by a full 1% to keep us on board. We are happy to work with AIB, but also with our private loan note holders.

To respond to Deputy Ó Broin's questions on capacity and our ability to scale, we are effectively developers. That is a bad word, but we are social developers. That nun in Ballymun calls us "soft developers". The other approved housing bodies, AHBs, in the sector are also social developers. We have spoken to the other AHBs. As the Deputy knows, at the moment all of the other housing associations, with the exception of the one on Enniskerry Road, focus entirely on social housing. They have the capacity to do what we are doing and they have the money, which is great. They have the balance sheet to invest in affordable housing if the land is made available. We do not. We are talking to these bodies and we will also be talking to the Irish Council for Social Housing to see if such a remit can be included in its work. As far as we concerned, practically all housing is social housing. It is in our homes that we start our socialisation as human beings. We say that the only house that is not a social house is the big gated mansion. That is anti-social housing, but we will not go there.

I mentioned the serviced sites fund. The issue of the equity stake is interesting. As I said before, we would like it if anybody selling the house had to sell it back to us so that we could sell it on again so that it would remain affordable in perpetuity. We had difficulty with financing in that area, not with construction financing but with financing individuals' mortgages. The bank will say that there is a restriction on the sale of the house and, if that person gets into serious arrears, the money the bank would get for the house from us might not match those arrears. We have said that would, in effect, be a charging order on the folio. We have said that we are more than happy to postpone that charge in favour of the bank so that the bank would always have first charge and that, if it needed to repossess because someone was in serious arrears and it needed to get the money back, it could get it back through sale on the open market. We do not mind that, but in the general run of things we would love it if people were to sell back to us. We think we will get there eventually. If we get more private finance support, it might give us the independence to be able to work something in there. That covers the matter of the clawback.

On the local authority's equity stake, I do not have any serious objection. I would prefer to keep using our own method if we could, but I know that there are different regulations coming in that area. We would also argue that the upper income limits should be raised, especially in the Dublin area. I do not think €75,000 is sufficient.