Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree that we need to examine this issue. When the scheme was introduced, over 20 years ago, I felt it would never work. It was fine when rents were reasonably low but it did not factor in the situation when rent would start to rise. It was a little different from about 2008 and 2009 on, when there was no money to buy housing, but the circumstances have now changed totally. There is now money to buy and build property, so there is no reason we should continue to pay to lease in the long term. We should be buying.

The same thing was done with schools 20 or 25 years ago, when the State started leasing premises where extensions for schools were needed. I came across a school more than ten years ago that was paying approximately €160,000 a year in rent, which was dead money because it had nothing at the end of the ten years. It had paid €1.6 million in that time but had nothing to show for it. Likewise with housing, at the end of ten or 20 years there is nothing to show for it except a lot of money paid out in rent. It is an issue we need to consider.