Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are two issues relating to housing, particularly for people between the ages of 25 and 40, namely, risk and affordability. The reality is that since the HBFI was established, the affordability aspect has been reduced for people of that age from 16% down to 12%, which would suggest that the HBFI is not effective. There is an issue here with the affordability aspect. The HBFI is there to fund developers who Ms Deering says cannot access funds elsewhere albeit we do not know what the due diligence is because she just told Deputy Munster that the HBFI does not actually require any kind of a letter saying that they cannot get funds from the bank. She is saying that the HBFI's percentage rates are comparable with the banks. However, the effect of having the HBFI set up is that the affordability aspect for people in that age group has reduced by four percentage points. How does that market research sit with Ms Deering?