Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for that reply. In an ideal world, I would have liked to table these amendments to section 4, but because of the Ceann Comhairle's ruling, I was not able to do that. In some sense, placing them in this section of the Bill allows us to have the debate but also to go a step further. If I understand the Minster of State correctly, his indirect answer to Deputy Michael McGrath is that there is nothing in the amendment that would breach state aid rules, because under the initial wording of that section as per the legislation, what I am proposing is permissible. First, in his response, will the Minister of State confirm explicitly that providing, for example, lower interest rates, albeit at market rates or longer maturities, would not be in breach of state aid rules? My understanding is that it would not be but that point of clarity would be very useful.

Second, it is about the Government's intention here. The Government's intention, as this loan facility has been presented, is to lend at potentially slightly higher commercial rates to builders than they would get from the mainstream banking finance, but because it would be a larger portion of the overall loan, they would not have to pursue the more expensive mezzanine finance and, therefore, in the round, the cost might be a bit more competitive for them. What we are proposing is something in addition to that. That is the reason we believe there is a value in stipulating it in this section.

I go back to the Rebuilding Ireland home loan because it is a good example. I refer to a developer who has a viable project but is not able, for example, to borrow from a bank at 7%. If he comes to HBFI under the current proposals as I understand them, he could be looking at an interest rate of approximately 8% on the mainstream loans. What we are looking for is for those builders who could not access that mainstream finance at 7% to have an offering, where they demonstrate they have been turned down for mainstream finance but HBFI deems their project is viable, to provide them with a lower rate. It is to establish the principle in the legislation of potentially two different rates of loans, perhaps a standard 8% for one group of builders but also something structured, in a similar way to the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme, for those who have been turned down but still have viable projects to get something at a lower rate. The Minister of State is saying that is permissible already. Why will he not accept the amendment because it makes that explicit as something HBFI can do? That signals intent from Government and from the Oireachtas as to the direction in which we would like HBFI to go and, on that basis, I am still pressing the amendment.

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