Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I welcome our guests. I recall the many interesting exchanges we have had over the years. Dr. Healy and I have had more than one. It is good to renew the debate.

First of all, I agree entirely in relation to the housing situation. I said that many years ago. Dr. Healy will recall, at a meeting that I had with him more than 20 years ago, I predicted that the biggest single issue to face this country in the future would be a lack of housing, and so it is.

Their estimates are short of what is required. There is more required than the 14,000 referred to in some cases or the 10,000 referred to in other cases. As long as we keep having a target that is short of what is required, we always will be behind.

How we build those houses is a different issue and we have to find a way to do that. The houses, incidentally, will be built by the private sector - public authority houses have to be built - because they are the only people who are in the business of building by contract. It has to be done as quickly as possible. There are economies of scale that we can get out of that. We can get reductions there.

In relation to the cost of the houses, I do not want to delay the meeting by getting into the proof of the pudding. I saw situations where housing land became available scot-free. That happened because land was zoned. It made not a whit of difference to the price of the houses. It was all a different situation then. Costs had gone up and there were all kinds of excuses put forward.

I heard the phrase "post-austerity" used on a number of occasions. Austerity is something that you have choices in. You can decide to have an austerity measure to correct something in the economy or you can choose not to. It should have been named "post-bankruptcy" because this country was bankrupt when there was so-called "austerity". We had better realise that. If we do not realise that, we are missing the target completely and avoiding facing up to the issue. The country was bankrupt. The banks had no money. We can blame it on however we like. I have spoken about this on many occasions. The banks had no money. The institutions had no money. The State could not be paid. The State's servants could not be paid. There were measures taken to cut people's salaries, left, right and centre, as a means of coming to an affordable way of running the country. That is a subject that angers me when I see it, and I am coming to the anger bit in a minute.

There are indications of anger. As I have said on many occasions in the past as well, anger does not pay the bills but it creates other problems. There are indications of expressions of anger. We should well read into history and see where they went in the past. We have to do what we have to do. We have to explain to the people who are angry.

Incidentally, it is not the same people who are affected. The people who are angry are not necessarily the same people who have been impacted harshly in the economic situation. It is other people who seek to capitalise on that. That is what is happening in relation to the targeting of individual groups in society.

It is appalling that a country that had set such high standards internationally as this has so many people with these pent-up views and you only have to scratch the surface when they let them roll free. We have to reject that. We have to explain to people who are expressing such anger that if they want to go there, there are consequences for everybody and we never again want to go in that direction.

I am not asking anybody to respond. This is a commentary of mine. Dr. Healy and I have had this commentary on many occasions in the past. I would claim that I made predictions then that have been proven, unfortunately, correct. That is why I emphasise the importance of the housing.

Housing is part of our taxation system. If a person has an affordable house - I would emphasise the "affordable" bit - he or she can rely on the future and can plan. Otherwise, he or she cannot. If the person is in somebody else's hands, if some landlord or institution has control of his or her housing, then the person cannot control it and can never rest easily. Incidentally, I am not a communist or anything like that. I am merely pointing at the situation that we have seen develop around us. We do not seem to be able to respond quickly enough to stop it from getting out of hand.

There are scores of other issues that upset me. I am nearly getting into the area of the anger now and I would want to be careful about that. We need to revise our housing requirements upwards on an annual basis. Many times in the past, I have tried to point that out.

This point goes back to anger. Anger begets anger. That is a lesson we should keep in mind. On every occasion where wild expressions of anger were allowed to run free in the past, there came a position where there was retribution, reaction and really serious issues. It would not be fair for me to go on about my various rants over the time.

There is much discussion now on what the level of national taxation on corporation profits should be. It may not be all that bad. It is at a certain level, a manageable level. It might not be the worst thing that ever happened. However, what is of crucial importance is that we do not all live in New York or in the centre of Europe. We in this country have to get to those markets and we have a geographical disadvantage. There has to be some correction at all times which gives us an even chance with all of our competitors globally because we depend so much on our export markets.

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. That is about as much as I can say on this sitting. There will be another time.