Mr. John McCarthy:

We have been conscious of this issue for a few years. There were a number of years in which supply essentially was at minimal levels. We then saw a much more rapid pick-up in the economy than would have been anticipated, with the demand for housing rising rapidly. Of course, the price elasticity of supply is very low, given that so many developers have gone out of business and access to capital is a problem. With the new finding model, a person cannot walk in and get a 955 loan from a bank, which is good from a financial stability perspective. There is certainly a mismatch or an imbalance between demand and supply in the economy. We are very conscious of the impact from a social as well as a competitiveness perspective. As the Deputy rightly said, workers need to be housed to make Ireland attractive for foreign direct investment. We need to be able to provide affordable accommodation. That is why the Government has come out with the rebuilding Ireland programme, with 80 or 90 sub-actions. It might take some time for all of them to come on stream, but it will ultimately lead to an increase in supply. Everybody is of the same opinion: this is a supply rather than a demand side problem.