Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to make a longer statement but I know we are here to ask questions so I will try to keep my contribution fairly succinct. The problem is that social housing has not really been addressed here. All of the discussion is directed towards private financing for private developers to build houses that will probably cost between €300,000 and €350,000. People cannot access housing in that price range and we have not really come to the nub of how to address this. I have listened to the witnesses talk about restrictions, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, and how one has to have all the structures and balances in place etc. Reference was made to France, and I hear through the grapevine that there is an Austrian social housing agency which is being funded to build 30,000 social housing units in Austria. If that can happen, why are we not hearing about it? Why are we not looking to find out exactly how that measure is structured and how it came about? From the committee's point of view, it needs to get that information, include it in the debate during the wrap-up and propose that kind of measure. The Department of Finance needs very quickly to look at what is going on with the European-wide situation and get on top of the situation because, as has been acknowledged, things are changing all the time. If a country is receiving money directly for social housing, then that is where we should be also.