Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I will leave it at that. Many observers would raise an eyebrow at it being claimed our effective tax is between 10% and 11% but in any case I will park that one.

On the issue of the summer economic statement, we are given to understand from press reports this morning that the issue at stake at Cabinet is the question of the public spend on housing. People are currently experiencing the sharpest housing crisis in the history of the State. To deal with that we need to start from the base of what are the needs of the people and what is needed to effectively tackle and end the crisis. I doubt whether Fianna Fail in government would go that far but yet there seems to be a real tension between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil on this issue. I would like the Minister to comment not on the detail but on the broad issue of the public funding needed to tackle the housing crisis.