Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I return to the issue of the length of the loan. I fully understand the entry level rent is a policy matter for Government. It is not a matter for the lender. My question is similar to Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's but presented in a different way. If Government made a policy decision to reduce those entry-level rents to cover people who we want to be able to afford cost-rental but who currently cannot and if Government were to ask the HFA what could be done at the finance end, would it be possible, for example, to stretch some of those finance arrangements to 50 years or 60 years as they exist in other jurisdictions? What would the interest rate implications after year 40 be? Is that something that could be done from Mr. O'Leary's knowledge of loan finance?

St. Michael's Estate, which will be the first local authority-led cost-rental scheme, does not have 40-year finance - unless Mr. O'Leary can break some good news to us today. The European Investment Bank loan which it originally got under the last Government is over 25 or 30 years. Dublin City Council has advised its elected members that that means the entry-level rents to that development will be €1,300 per month. Obviously, if Dublin City Council were to seek the assistance of the HFA, could that finance be restructured as was done on Enniskerry Road to provide 40-year finance to assist in that?

I did not know that the HFA could lend to the local authorities at a lower interest rate; that is very interesting. Based on that 0.75%, by how much would that reduce the monthly loan repayment for a standard unit of accommodation that the agency funds? I am asking this for an important reason. Local authorities are not engaging in cost rental because it is not really Government policy. They really want the AHBs and the LDA to be involved in that. The local authorities are giving up the possibility of doing cost rental, as with St. Teresa's Gardens, to the LDA. However, if the local authorities could borrow at a lower interest rate than the AHBs and the LDA, that would obviously be a very positive step to reducing the rent. I would be very interested to hear anything Mr. O'Leary has to add to that. If I have time after he replies, I will come back to Mr. Jordan.