Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I have one last question. I heard the Minister reply to one of the earlier questions about tax breaks that brought a wall of money into the country. I presume he was referring to property and real estate investment trusts. What is the logic of facilitating a new wave of speculation by the same type of vulture that caused the disaster for which people have been paying so dearly over the past six years? The Minister referred to the need for three-bedroom homes. The Minister must be aware of the desperate situation of people being made homeless on a weekly basis through landlords increasing rents. There are no local authority houses. In the 1970s, the country was building 5,000, 6,000 and 7,000 social homes a year and now it builds a few hundred. Can that situation be rectified?