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

Dr. Bacon described real estate investment trusts as a positive development. I will put an alternative view that has been expressed to me by a mortgage holder who is having a loan transferred to one of these trusts. It was put to me that these trusts are vulture capitalists and these transfers make the mortgage holders position very vulnerable. Will Dr. Bacon comment on that alternative view?

I asked Dr. Bacon a question on the affordability of homes in which I noted that the price of a home increased in each year in the ten-year period from 1996 to 2006 by an amount equivalent to the average industrial wage. Dr. Bacon appeared to minimise the apparent severity of these increases by stating that many people earned more than the average industrial wage. While that is true, in 2006, when the average industrial wage was €30,000, two thirds of all incomes were less than €30,000 and the median annual income was €25,000 per annum. In light of these figures, will Dr. Bacon reconsider his view on whether these price increases were inordinate?

In the mid-2000s, it was reported in The Irish Timesand many other newspapers that 11 acres of residential development land in Stillorgan had been bought in 2000 for €32 million and sold four years later for €85 million before any building had taken place. Given that permission had been granted for 478 apartments on the site, the speculative gain in this transaction would have added €100,000 to the price of each apartment. As a long-time consultant on property issues, does Dr. Bacon consider it was moral or immoral to allow this level of profit-taking - some might describe it as profiteering - in land for what is a basic human need of a home?