Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Some of those people will buy second-hand homes and some of them will buy new homes. Some of the other 20,000 people, who are movers and second-time buyers, will buy new homes as well. The point I am making is that when there are 40,000 approvals of mortgages and we are building 16,000 houses or 20,000 houses next year, the problem is not in demand, it is in supply. I do not know what I need to do to convince the Minister that this is the problem. The Minister makes the argument that the issue is that people cannot get mortgages, or the deposit together for a mortgage, despite the fact that the Central Bank has told the Minister that the average loan-to-value ratio is less than what the Central Bank has said is required to meet its rules. The average loan-to-value is below 80%. The Central Bank's rules are all above 80%. I appreciate the difficulties as I know individuals who have to save. It is very difficult to get that deposit together. However, the problem is that the Minister is using a very blunt instrument which is targeting a large cohort of people. In the morning, those 19,000 first-time buyers could potentially decide to buy new houses. If they buy new houses and if they cost €400,000 each, the Minister will have to write a cheque to them to the value of €385 million per year. That is what he is saying.