Ms Dara Deering:

There are a number of reasons. We have a national remit, which means we are here to fund schemes in every county. Sometimes the mainstream banks focus more on urban areas and high population centres. We will try to support demand in every county, if that is viable, and we have so far supported schemes in 20 counties. The more fundamental point is that at times a builder or developer will not have the required level of equity that meets the risk criteria for a bank. What do I mean by that? The main banks will typically lend approximately 65% of the cost of building a new development. We can lend more than that. We can go up to approximately 80% to try to make more schemes viable. That is the second reason.

The third reason is that some of the schemes will simply be too small for the main banks. That is why we brought out-----