Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are using leasing and RAS programmes as social housing output builds to the point we want it to get to. What is the alternative? Does Deputy Boyd Barrett think it would be tenable for me to say that while homes are being built, we will not provide support to people who need it? That would be wrong. While we are getting our social housing output up to where we need it, we are using these programmes to ensure people who need support to have roofs over their heads, which they deserve, get it.

I do not have an answer on the revenue from a financial transactions tax but I will get one for the Deputy. I know it is an issue the Deputy has raised in the past. This is an example of why I do not believe the Deputy's policies are uncosted, rather I believe they would cause huge harm to our economy. If we were to introduce a financial transactions tax, as glamorous as that sounds from afar, it would have an immediate effect on the financial services sector which employs tens of thousands of people. We would find ourselves as an outlier in implementing something like that at a time when the only silver lining available to our economy is where we might end up from a financial services perspective post-Brexit. The policy would, again, harm the creation and retention of jobs.