Mr. John Hannigan:

Some of it has to do with the narrowness of the definitions that we have here, as has already been highlighted by my colleagues from the Irish Council for Social Housing. The levels of earnings to qualify for social housing are quite low. There is a broader definition in other jurisdictions that allows for an intermediate market to exist and for it to be dealt with through approved housing bodies or similar bodies. The fiscal rules are one of the reasons this has occurred.

In addition to this, a different point of view has been taken for Ireland in isolation to the rest of Europe. This is one of the issues we have been examining to see how those interpretations stand up if we were to compare them to the rest of Europe. There are some differences in the interpretation for Ireland compared to what has been there for the UK and other jurisdictions. We are going to look at this.