Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

My defence on this is that I would argue the vast majority of the land we are speaking about that is banked was not bought at today's market values. For example, Hines is sitting on units in Cherrywood that are valued at more than €120,000 but it paid only €27,000 for them. The Deputy has stated people can only build unaffordable homes on those sites because they cost so much.

They did not cost a mad amount and the majority of land banked was not bought at the high prices. In 2007 there were 27 entities which, or people who, owned 95% of the banked development land in county Dublin. The only people who were actually caught in the situation, such as the one described by Deputy where it is so hard to provide affordable housing, were the builders who bought it from them. I was one of them and I have spoken previously about the site in Dominick Street for which I paid €4.8 million. The interest on the money cost me €1.2 million, which put me at €6 million, and it cost me €6 million to build. Half of the costs for such developments were land and interest costs and only half was for construction costs. I was caught in a situation where I had to get a minimum of €400,000 per unit to get my money back.