Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Is it not extraordinary in itself that we are now playing with these rules and it is extraordinarily difficult to get money on-balance sheet to build homes in order that people can actively participate in the economy and as citizens? Is there not something cracked about this and the fact that we have to find ways to be off-balance sheet? The Garda, for example, thought - as did the Department of Justice and Equality, mind - that it was okay to be off-balance sheet. Is this not worrying for the Department of Finance? In the witnesses' training, do they not look at other things that are equally important in a thriving economy and learn that housing is the most basic requirement? If we have a housing crisis, property prices rising by €1,000 a week and Government policy stating it will give money to the private system in the guise of social housing, does that not trouble Mr. Moran as an indicator that this economy is not thriving? Should the Department not be looking at the rules and telling the Government it will comply with them as that is its job, but that this is the result and the collateral damage?