John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Spain is in a similar space to Ireland. Surely it flies in the face of the perceived economic wisdom of years to advocate the paying down of debt when interest rates are so low that money can be acquired so cheaply by member states. Excluding London, which will be excluded from the EU anyway shortly, Dublin is the most expensive city in the EU in which to rent a home. When this identifiable and significant bottleneck exists in our economy, we should be in a position as a member state to prioritise it for public and private investment and there should be significantly more leeway than there is under the rules to allow us to tackle the problem.

In the case of the housing sector, the important point is to overcome all the barriers concerning supply.