Mr. Patrick Sweetman:

One or two of them do. I thank the Deputy for his questions. On the Central Bank, ultimately, I am just a private citizen and that is my personal, private view. Nobody wants to go back to the crisis or the difficulties we have had. The Central Bank has other tools at its disposal as to how it might control the market.

I would like to see, in the decisions it makes on financial stability, that it factors in the long-term as well as the short-term view, but I never see that this is done. That is my net point. The long-term cost of preventing people being able to buy a house might be as a result of a much more significant issue than is currently factored in.

There are other measures available. Touching on another point the Deputy makes about costs being too high, and this is a private citizen's comment on the Government take, the proportion often mentioned is that the Government takes one third of the cost of the price of the house. If it reduced that by half and three times as many houses were built, on pure mathematics that would be a gain and no cost, so it is something that needs to be examined.

On the question as to why the costs have not come down, extraordinarily, building costs apparently have not come down even though the market is fundamentally different from what it was previously. I cannot explain that. That might be one for the representatives of the chartered surveyors tomorrow.

The final point I will make is on servicing a mortgage as opposed to paying a rent. What I often hear is that it is cheaper to get a mortgage than to pay a rent.