Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want some clarity about what this session is meant to be about. As I have said already, I have something of an issue with having an entire session on private housing. Private housing is not affordable and that is the problem. It is fine if that is what we are discussing, but some people simply want to increase housing supply. As I said at the outset, we can increase housing supply as we did during the Celtic tiger, when many developers and speculators benefited, but people could not afford that housing. I want clarity on the purpose of the private housing session.

Certain issues need to be discussed. We have so-called millennials. These are people who are under 34 years of age. For them, the idea of owning a house is completely off the agenda. We need to have someone before the committee who will deal with that issue. It should not only be Tom Parlon of the Construction Industry Federation. We need to consider what is happening in the private housing sector, whether from someone from NAMA or someone else. The statements from the private housing sector seem to suggest it is not profitable enough to build, that a mark-up of €20,000 on a house is not enough and that they need far more. Perhaps you could clarify the purpose of that session, Chairman.