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

Could I put it to Mr. Regling that it was widespread in a sense, but it really related to an elite and largely to the establishment? Would he agree that perhaps when he says property acquisition as a topic was almost a national obsession in Ireland, and that it was hard to overstate the impact of this cultural attitude, this was perhaps the case among those people to whom he spoke, but the big majority of ordinary people in this country were not involved in property speculation. By way of background, this is a particularly sensitive issue here because some of those who have pushed subsequent austerity justify it on the basis that "we all partied". In reality most people did not, they were the victims.