Mr. Michael Curran:

We keep talking about homes. There are 60,000 holiday homes in Ireland. That is according to Google so how true that is I do not know. Last weekend, we had our AGM in Bantry on the lovely Beara Peninsula. We discovered that 40% of the houses on the peninsula are holiday homes. I am lucky in that I come from close enough to where Deputy Healy-Rae comes from. I come from the Iveragh Peninsula where about 50% of the houses are holiday homes. Mrs. Doyle said that people stay in holiday homes for three months of the year in her experience. In our area it is closer to six to seven weeks of the year. We have approximately 60,000 houses that would, if not fix, go a hell of a long way towards fixing the housing issues we have. They are all houses in good condition, requiring nothing to be done to them. Yet, for the princely sum of €200 a year with non-principal primary residence tax, people can keep those houses. At the same time, we have over 11,000 people homeless and the figure is growing. Perhaps we have to get a small bit real and stop talking about tax incentives such as capital gains taxes that were referred to earlier. Let us go the other way. Why do we not fund a social housing building programme on the back of holiday homes that exist right now? It is not politically palatable - I know that - but we just want homes for our members. It is too late for my friends. They left years ago but we want to stop people like Ms Houlihan and Ms Farrell, smart, educated people who are contributing to society, from having to leave because they do not have a future here. We want a future for our young people. There should be no sacred cows when it comes to securing a future for our young people.