Mr. Des Carville:

I thank the Deputies for their questions. I will address Deputy Casey's question on the proposed structure first. The ILCU prepared a paper, The Social Housing Funding Proposal, over a year ago in which there were two proposed structures. One was a direct model. It is a pity I cannot show it to the committee because it shows it succinctly in a graph. We will send it on to the committee if it does not have it. There was a direct model and also an indirect model. The difficulty with the direct model is that it involved a State-owned financial vehicle within the chain. That causes potential difficulties for us but also timing issues with trying to clear such a vehicle through DG Comp and the state aid rules. It is also on-balance sheet. That was one potential proposal. I wrote to the ILCU in 2016 to make it very clear it was not our preferred approach and we would much prefer the indirect model approach which keeps the vehicle off-balance sheet. My understanding is that the sector generally has been pursuing that approach rather than the former for a period of time. The indirect model, for lots of reasons, strikes us as the one with a greater degree of executability right across the various criteria. It is the approach everyone is looking at. In terms of the conversation between EUROSTAT and the CSO and the expenditure benchmark, while we talk to them in the Department of Finance, it is not within our purview to talk to them about social housing and approved housing bodies. It is a matter for the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. There is a direct interplay between them. It is not fair for me to comment on that because I am not directly involved in it.