Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Okay, but that's ... if I could maybe say ... use the statement, all things being equal ... but the Irish economy had very particular difficulties with it at the time. As has been stated earlier, 24% of the economy tied up in construction ... as members have identified a whole series of issues this morning - highest debt, indebtedness in Europe, most ... evidence, I think, I presented myself to yourself this morning, the house ... the highest property values in western Europe, most expensive houses, Dublin more expensive than cities like New York and Hong Kong - just for residential property not even commercial stuff - consumption taxes now becoming the balance of income more so than the structural tax. And ... so where's the evidence to say that as soon as this ... there would be a slow down in construction, there would obviously be a knock-on effect upon employment, this would have a knock-on effect upon consumption taxes, peoples indebtedness levels ... it's not even a case ... like, we know from the finance committee that you've been in before and from the Keane report, that for a lot of people who ran into difficulty, it wasn't that they actually lost their job, what they actually lost was their affordability to actually pay back their debt? Was there any evidence that any of these things was going to happen?