Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Fair play, but when I was in the Seanad, the Minister of State at the time was former Deputy Michael Finneran. I remember him giving a speech. Someone drew my attention to it on YouTube a number of months ago. Well over a decade ago, I spoke about how crazy it was of Government policy to stop building homes and to enter into long-term leasing arrangements, the nonsense of knocking down derelict or ghost estates, and how we would have a housing crisis, the prices of homes within ten years would revert to where they were prior to the crash and people would be evicted from their homes because landlords would sell up. This was not crystal ball stuff and someone did not need to be a genius. The then Government decided on a course of action just as the Minister before us is deciding on a course of action. He has pursued a policy that can only result in house prices and rents increasing and the profits of the funds increasing. That is what has happened. It is not crystal ball stuff. If one does A, one will get B.

As the Minister is flicking through our alternative budget, I will offer him a novel idea. Let us ramp up investment in social, affordable and cost-rental homes. Let the State step in with the appropriate response and build houses. It has not built houses for years. I have no doubt that the Minister's constituents are giving him the same messages mine are giving me. The difference is that he very much is responsible for the hardships facing many families across the State. I say this not as a personal attack on him but in terms of him being the person occupying the role of Minister for Finance who has continually pursued a policy that has been detrimental to ordinary families across the State. That is the reality. This is where it happens and the Minister is the guy who makes it happen. He is also the person who, if he changes direction, allows us to start to change the narrative. We would start making house prices affordable. I look at the Minister's record, though, which is something from which he cannot shy away. From a taxation point of view, his record on housing has been appalling. How can he stand over it? Prices have only gone in one direction.

The Tánaiste spoke on RTÉ a year and a half ago - I watched it recently - and said that there was good news, in that house prices had peaked and were starting to decrease, as were rents, and that it would be two years before people started to feel it. That was a year and a half ago. In that time, the same thing happened as happened in the years prior, that being, house prices and rents increased and ordinary people were pushed to the pin of their collar. There is tea and sympathy for the funds but no help for ordinary people.