Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Dr. Lyons’s thought-provoking analysis, much of which I agree with. What happened during the boom was that people in construction made a fortune and the system allowed it to happen. Everyone was happy, except the person who was paying a mortgage or who could not get a house. State-owned lands, as well as those owned by local authorities, semi-State companies such as Irish Rail, and the HSE, should be made available at a fixed price for social and affordable housing programmes. Many people want to buy their own house but they cannot because they cannot secure a mortgage or do not have the 10% savings for one.

The fixed-price construction makes much sense for a three-bed house or an apartment. Take Gormanston army camp, for example. It has 200 acres of land beside a motorway and railway. It is near enough to Dublin and other facilities. Making houses available on this site to people who can just pay the mortgage on the building cost of the unit makes the most sense. It would help those who need to get a step on the ladder. What are Dr. Lyons’s views on that?

Dr. Lyons was correct about a mix of social housing and New York. When I was there, I went to one of the most expensive apartment blocks which had a zero carbon impact and a unit could cost up to $200,000 in rent. Up to 10% of all its inhabitants were social housing applicants. They could not be identified by any means too. Everyone had a chance to get into fine quality accommodation for their family needs and so forth. We need to radically change our view on social housing mix. There are too many vested interests here and we have all fallen on hard times as a result. We have to make housing affordable for people and use the State’s resources to do that. If that is given to the right and qualifying people, then it will give them a major start-up.