Today is international credit union day, as I am sure the Tánaiste is aware. Both the programme for Government and the confidence and supply agreement contain commitments to the credit union movement that have not materialised. As the housing crisis continues, the willingness of the credit union movement to invest in social housing has still not been tapped into. Will the credit union movement be permitted to invest in housing development via the special purpose vehicle being developed by the Irish Council for Social Housing? When will the details of that special purpose vehicle be finalised?

There is a clear commitment in the programme for Government, as initiated by Fianna Fáil, to ensure the credit unions use this vehicle. As Deputy Ó Caoláin said, today is credit union day and, indeed, the credit union movement has given 60 years of dedicated service to communities, businesses and families. It has been lauded as the No. 1 customer experience and has been voted as such in the last four years. Like Deputy Ó Caoláin, I want to ask when we will see the outgoings in this regard. The Central Bank gave a clear commitment that the credit unions would be able to participate in this yet there seems to be a lack of effort by the Government to initiate it. It is time to stop propping up banks that are charging exorbitant interest rates to those lucky enough even to get consideration for loans, not to mention the failure to put a stop to the rampant gallop of the vulture funds' activities.

This is just another reason people have lost faith in the ability of this House to deal with the single biggest crisis facing us, the housing crisis. The credit unions have had billions available for a number of years to invest in the delivery of social and affordable housing. The Tánaiste discussed this with me previously at committee. It took over three years for the Central Bank to approve this funding to deliver social housing and we are now one year on from that. The off-balance sheet model that was deemed possible to allow the credit unions to invest in social housing has been proven to be on-balance sheet, and all approved housing bodies are on-balance sheet. Until we deal with the bureaucracy that is stopping us finding the solutions for people out there, we are wasting our time. We have billions available; all we need is a model. We have been talking about this model for years. When is it going to arrive?

My understanding is that, in response to proposals from the credit union sector to provide funding for social housing, the Central Bank's investment framework was amended to allow for investment in tier 3 approved housing bodies via a regulated entity. Since 1 March 2018 credit unions have been permitted to provide funding via a special purpose vehicle to tier 3 approved housing bodies for the provision of social housing. This change in regulation could facilitate a combined sector investment in tier 3 approved housing bodies of close to €700 million. To put this figure into context, to the end of 2017 total lending from the Housing Finance Agency to approved housing bodies was €350 million. Under current regulations, credit unions are free to set up special purpose vehicles and invest in tier 3 approved housing bodies, subject to certain limits.