Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Our budget deficit in 2010 was €48.8 billion. That is the figure. Why were we not in a position for the State to directly buy and keep all of the housing stock that Deputy Boyd Barrett has referred to? It is because at that point, our budget deficit was just under €49 billion. Two years later, it did improve to just under €19 billion. If the Deputy wants the answer as to why that opportunity was not available to us, it is because we did not have the money. The money was not there. Deputy Durkan has made the point already that even at that stage, we were in the IMF bailout programme. Even leaving aside that fundamental fact for a moment, at that point we were €49 billion short of what was needed to balance our books in that given year. This is the reason we could not acquire that stock and could not invest in the way the Deputy is looking for and wants now.

I am really saddened to hear of the little boy with the bag in his hands, to whom the Deputy referred. It upsets me to hear of a family facing that kind of trauma in our country, and for the Deputy to have to engage with a family that is crying because they might be homeless. It saddens me greatly that all of us as public representatives encounter all of these cases. What saddens me even more is the reality those families and those people have to confront. In the face of that kind of human need, which I know is very intense and which is changing lives so much for the worse when families get affected by that, my great determination is to try to get more homes built and to try to get the mix of homes built that can make a difference. I put it to Deputy Boyd Barrett and to Deputy Doherty that any time we try to build more homes in the part of the country that I know best, that is, here in Dublin, the Deputies' local councillors vote against them. The Deputies are shaking their heads. They might not have heard me and I will repeat it to them again just in case.