Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The discussion has gone well beyond the Finance Bill. I have been asked to comment on areas on which I have no expertise.

In talking about 10% or 12% I was referring to the equity piece. The traditional model for a small builder building 70 or 80 houses was bank finance for about 60% to two-thirds, with the rest provided by the builder from the profits from the previous 70 or 80 houses he built and it was rolled over into the next housing estate. After the collapse, there was no one to provide the equity piece. The equity piece is being provided again and some of the funds are being provided by the Strategic Investment Fund through the banks.

The rate started out at about 14%, but as I understand it, it is between 10% and 12% now, but that was on the basis of financing 90% of it. As the sector repairs, the averages for what the small builders require have now gone down to 70% or 75%. Because the percentage is not so big, the risk has diminished and the interest rate is now going down closer to about 8%. The Deputy should not tie me hard to any of these numbers; I am giving her indicators.

It would be entirely different with, for example, Cairn in Cherrywood. It develops the town centres across the United States in big tranches of land and then it develops the facilities, the roads, power lines, gas lines, sewerage, water etc. Then it sells on to the small builder who might want to build 100 houses, but all the infrastructure is already in place. It is public quoted and it is getting money at 2%. The people in west Dublin that the Deputy knows, Cairns, is publicly quoted-----