David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I am not talking about that. That is the future. We have landed in a situation and we are looking back. We can look to the future and we want to look to the future, but as a committee we primarily look back. Over the past five or ten years, decisions were made to stop building social and affordable housing. As a consequence, the vast majority of people now have their housing needs met through the private sector. That has pushed up rents to unsustainable levels. Over the period that was happening, what analysis was done by the Department? Was it pointed out to people like Mr. McCarthy and the Department that as a consequence of not building social and affordable housing, rents would be driven up and that was going to affect our competitiveness? Was any such research or analysis ever done? Was that advice ever given to the Department in the past ten years? I am not referring to what might happen in the future. We now have to correct what has happened. I refer to why we got into this situation in the first place.