Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 22 March 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Social and Affordable Housing: Discussion

Mr. Barry O'Leary:

In the short term I think we will. Certainly with our strategy, which is a quarter of the overall Housing for All strategy, we are confident we will hit the numbers we forecast for this year.

Starting at the beginning, "Yes" is the answer to whether there is a rate difference. It is about the risk of lending to a local authority and the chance of it going bust versus that of an AHB, although they are very good businesses. The rate differential is about 0.75%. It makes a difference when you are rolling into the model in terms of what you could deliver cost rental for.

Do we see local authorities being involved? We would love to see them being involved and drawing down money for cost rental because it would spread our portfolio. We would be lending to two different types of business then. They can definitely deliver this stuff so we would be delighted to do it but we are quite a demand-led business. We process loan applications reasonably quickly but we do not go out on the streets canvassing for these things. Local authorities are very aware of our offering.

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