Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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607. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if the €200 million raised by the Housing Finance Agency for the purposes of the newly announced local authority loan scheme constitutes on balance sheet general government expenditure for the purposes of calculating fiscal space; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5334/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Funding of €200 million for the new Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan has been raised by the Housing Finance Agency, HFA, from a variety of sources, on a fixed rate basis for periods out to thirty years maturity. Based on the pricing achieved, local authorities can offer a first tranche of fixed-rate annuity finance to eligible borrowers at rates of 2.0% and 2.25% per annum, for twenty five and thirty years respectively, up to an aggregate maximum of €200 million.

This funding is not allocated to individual local authorities but rather will be drawn down by local authorities from the HFA to match their lending under the Rebuilding Ireland Home Loan.  Local authority borrowing from the HFA that is lent by local authorities to individuals, as long as it is provided on a commercial basis and is being repaid, is classified as a financial transaction, and so does not count as general Government expenditure.