Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is the officials and the councillors who will make the decisions. Some of the councillors are from the Deputies' own background and are part of that conversation also. We will look at every option to get these houses delivered.

With regard to credit unions providing funds, the changes were made to allow this. I met the credit unions recently. We want them to be involved in housing projects. We have explained to them how they can do this. It is about being able to fund projects off balance sheet. The credit unions are finding ways to partner up and they are engaging with some of the approved housing bodies. They are interested and the credit union money is there. It is not the €8 billion that people say credit unions have, but they do have a lot of funds available. We are very interested in having them on board, along with other bodies that want to fund houses, and we have made this very clear to them. We will do this site by site and will look at all suggestions.

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