Mr. Barry O'Leary:

I will try to do so. I would not advance the Housing Finance Agency as being expert in the EU rules. They are extremely difficult to understand and they change all the time. My understanding of the situation is the existing budgetary constraints on deficit and expenditure prevent local authorities from being allowed to borrow. I am not in a position to state whether they are classified as EU rules or decisions within the existing fiscal space, but there is a distinction between choices made in the fiscal space and the EU rules. People in the Department of Finance know much more about this and the committee would be safer speaking to them about it.

From our point of view, the barrier is that the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government will receive an allocation from which local authorities will be allowed to borrow in the course of the year and at present this is very tight. Local authorities are allowed to borrow if it can be financed and serviced within their own resources, but very few of them can achieve this. Within the current budgetary environment, choices will have to be made and priorities will have to be decided. Something we believe ought to be a priority is allowing local authorities to borrow up to a net sum of €620 million but a gross €1.3 billion, which would allow them build the 9,000 homes. We do not have the wherewithal to comment on the fine print in the EU rules and whether the question on this has been asked.

If other taxes were introduced it would create additional space, but this is not our area.

We are an organisation of 12 people and are reasonably good at borrowing and lending money cheaply and getting it repaid before rolling it over again. That is what we are bringing to the table with this proposal.

The Dublin bonds worked in the past, and there is nothing to stop them working in the future. An affordability model involving a certain mix is being worked on in the Department. We would be quite happy to lend money in that direction. There is a balance to be found. We have the benefit of a Government guarantee and no State aid questions arise, given the fact that we are providing for a social housing need, but as more private or affordable renting enters the mix, one must be cognisant of whether State aid issues arise. One could do a fair bit of activity before that became a problem, though, given the fact that the nature of the social housing requirement is approximately 35,000 houses. One would have a great deal of affordable housing provided before State aid issues arose. In principle, we would have no issue about lending into that environment to facilitate that work, because it facilitates housing, which is what we are here to do.

Have I missed any question?