Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My understanding is that there is no legal obstacle to local authorities establishing housing associations if they wish to do so. I agree with the Deputy's comments on the difficulties in accessing funding. I share her frustration. As Dr. Norris stated, the Housing Finance Agency has significant funding. We would all like to see that money being drawn down and used to construct houses for people as soon as possible. For this reason, we established a voluntary code and are working on a statutory one.

I attended the first meeting of the interim regulatory committee in the Housing Agency's offices. It is working hard to engage with voluntary bodies, financial institutions and so on to determine the obstacles. The committee is considering detailed financial benchmarks to which it could sign up. I accept that we want progress to be made as quickly as possible and that some of the voluntary bodies are anxious to be able to borrow money, be it on the private markets or through credit unions, pension funds, etc. We are working to remove obstacles.

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