Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When NAMA was being set up in 2010, the then Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan, said that there would still be a need for 25,000 houses per annum. The Central Bank has all of the information at its disposal, in terms of the wages people are earning, rates of unemployment and so on. What recommendations did the Central Bank make to the Government? It has laid a lot of blame on politicians today. We heard Mr. Tony O'Brien of the HSE say at committee that it is a matter for politicians to come up with health policies. When it suits the Central Bank, the HSE and other organs of the State, they try to lay the blame at the door of politicians. As I said, the former Minister for Finance said in 2010 that there was a requirement for 25,000 new houses per year. In its statement today, the Central Bank predicts that approximately 23,000 houses will be built in 2018 and up to 30,000 in 2019. Almost ten years after the former Minister made that statement, we are getting up to the required level of house-building. What recommendations did the Central Bank make to the Government at that time? Did it outline what the Government needed to do to ensure that the required 25,000 houses per annum were built so that we would not be in the situation we are in today whereby in places like Dublin, nobody can buy a house?