Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

House prices have increased by €100,000 since the Minister came into government in 2011. In Dublin they have increased by €160,000 on average since 2011. This is an incredible legacy for a Fine Gael Party that has been in government on two occasions since then. With all of the competing negative legacies coming from the housing sector we forget about this one. This average €100,000 throughout the State does one of two things. It prevents a chunk of people, a massive section of people, ever getting a home and it puts those who do get a home at those prices in hock to banks for a decade or two extra. That money comes out of their income as a result. It is an incredible situation. In a normal functioning society, the price of a house should be approximately three to four times the average industrial wage but in this State it is between six and seven times the average industrial wage in most of the State and in Dublin it can be ten times the average industrial wage. We know there has been a massive problem with the increase in the price of housing in the past while.

Another startling fact is that according to daft.iethe supply of houses is at its lowest point today than it has been in 14 years. After the past ten years of the Government, we have never seen a lower supply of housing in the State. It is one third less than it was this time last year. One of the first things anybody studying leaving certificate economics learns is the supply and demand curve. It is the foundation stone of anybody's understanding of how economics works. If we have a rigid supply curve and the level of demand is increased, the equilibrium price increases. There is not a person with any level of understanding of economics in the country that does not understand that much. However, most of the Government's response to this has been on the demand side when the supply side has not been happening at all.

People such as me have been making the argument to deal with the level of vacant homes in the State. One in 33 homes in the State are vacant and we have not seen enough on this. The implementation of the vacant site tax has been incredibly poor. Only approximately ten local authorities have been able to implement it and only 140 sites in the country have been able to be taxed. The taxation levels on vacant sites is lower than the increments in prices received. It is still not being used as a motivational tool to get these sites into function.

There has to be no doubt, even in the Ministers' minds, that if we continuously focus on increasing the amount of money that is chasing the rigid supply it will not lead to more houses. It leads to an increase in price. The important part for people who are buying houses is where this money will land. Will it land in their pockets or in the pockets of developers? The economics are very clear on this. It will land in the developers' pockets in the long run. I know from the debates we had in the Dáil last week, and some of the narrative we have had here, that Fine Gael is angry at this insistence by the Opposition that the benefit of its policy is landing in the hands of developers as opposed to citizens.

From everything that has been said at the meeting, however, it is evidentially a fact that the benefit of the Government's policy is landing in the pockets of developers rather than in the hands of citizens.