Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I would not dispute what Deputy Ó Broin has said.

One thing that we have not talked about is how, in previous Administrations, we often had people to advise us on policy who would not be members of a committee or, necessarily, members of the staff of the Oireachtas. Although I am not familiar with the academics on this - I say that in a respectful rather than a derogatory manner - I do know that in the 1970s under the then Minister for Local Government, former Deputy James Tully, who was a Labour Deputy, there was a housing crisis. I do not recall the figures for what we built exactly but it was certainly as many houses as we are talking about building now. It would be useful if somebody could check the record as to what steps were taken then.

It would also be useful to examine what has happened in the United Kingdom. Where is the repository of knowledge? It would be useful if somebody could identify it, be they a professional researcher, staff of the Oireachtas Library or whoever. When we are talking about what we need to do now, as other people have said, we do not need to invent the wheel, but we might be able to select some ideas from such an analysis of what has been done in other jurisdictions and in our own jurisdiction in the past.