Mr. Jerome Casey:

Deputy Catherine Murphy mentioned that the Housing Finance Agency has €500 million to lend. However, the terms on which we can borrow from the agency are quite different from those available to local authorities. That affects capacity. We are borrowing at a rate of 5% compared with 2% or so for local authorities. In addition, the Irish banks do not have a strategic view on social housing as a long-term investment. They have not engaged with us in any serious way. There have been some once-off deals but no long-term strategic view. That is part of the wider context in which we are working to enable greater provision of social housing, with due regard to the potential risk that goes with moving into mixed-tenure development.

I have a word of caution on the mixed model to which Deputy Kevin Humphreys referred. The United Kingdom housing associations have gone considerably into private finance, which raises some questions as to whether they have lost their primary function of social housing provision. In a situation where their balance sheets and books are so large, they have got caught up in private finance and repaying the loans.