Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In 2012, house prices were still falling, plunging hundreds of thousands of people into negative equity. We had 3,000 ghost estates. We had a massive deficit which we had to correct to get us to a stable state. If the Government proposed borrowing billions of euro at that time - which it would not have been able to do - to build housing, it would not have lasted in office. In 2014, we exited the bailout and everyone said there would be a second one. We are only now managing to correct that deficit. In spite of that, two years ago we embarked on a very ambitious plan to rebuild housing and that is what we are doing. We are playing catch-up. This crisis was more than a decade in the making and we have gone from crisis to crisis in housing in this country for decades. That is why this Government, as well as implementing immediate responses to the crisis, is also planning for the long term through proposals such as Project Ireland 2040 and the Land Development Agency in order to ensure that no future generation suffers from the kind of crises that afflicted the past two generations - which I straddle - while also helping to protect those generations to the greatest extent possible.

It is important that people in a functioning democracy protest, take to the streets and get outraged about what is happening in the Oireachtas because it means they are paying attention and they care. Too often in our past, particularly in the years leading up to the crisis, too few people were paying attention inside or outside these Houses to some very bad decisions that were being made. Since the crisis, we have had far greater political engagement as well as public engagement on political events. Great changes have been brought about by the people through the referendums on marriage equality and the repeal of the eighth amendment. Very important things have happened. I hope that people continue to engage on this matter because it is important that we all understand where we have come from and where we need to go.