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

The issue of using off-balance sheet and special purpose vehicles will be critical to the committee. Departmental officials will appear before the committee next week to discuss this complex issue. I agree with Social Justice Ireland that NAMA should be used to address the housing problem. I have been arguing for two years that NAMA will be instrumental to resolving the issue because it currently controls one third of all development land in Dublin where the housing crisis is focused, albeit not exclusively. Furthermore, NAMA is a major operation in its own right.

The difficulty is that in 2009, when NAMA was established, different rules applied and it appears that EUROSTAT keeps changing the rules. Would NAMA not be in breach of the rules if it were to become involved in the development of social housing? I raised this issue recently with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Coveney, during a brief meeting he held with the political parties. We will raise this issue with the Minister again. He indicated that if NAMA were to become involved in this area, its role would not be one of an off balance sheet special purpose vehicle.

What is the witness's view on something I raised the other day? The EU fiscal rules do not prohibit spending if commensurate revenue is raised to pay for that spending, which is never really discussed. The Government rules it out and says it cannot do that off balance sheet. However, it could introduce a whole range of taxes, for example, housing crises taxes. We keep hearing that there is not a shilling in the country but the evidence would suggest otherwise. We have already said that the rich list would indicate that the 250 richest people in Ireland have one third of GDP and have increased their wealth by about 3%. For example, we could have a 3% wealth tax or we could enforce the 12.5% corporation tax rate. The Anti-Austerity Alliance estimates that would raise €2 billion this year but actually it would raise more because the profits of the top 1,000 companies in Ireland have increased this year by 25%.

It appears as if the off balance sheet thing is impossible. An official from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government said on the "This Week" programme that it was impossible to do anything off balance sheet now given the rules that exist. We have to tease this out. He is in the Department's new funding models area and he concluded by saying that no new model that would itself be capable of providing and-or financing social housing on an off balance sheet basis has emerged. It seems to me that must we breach the EU rules and say we will not abide by those rules as they are paralysing our country and forcing a housing crisis on hundreds of thousands of people and impoverishing many others paying rent. If we do not do that, this housing crisis will continue. However, we could also propose new funding being raised by progressive taxation on the wealth of those who can afford it.