Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

There is no need to reinvent the wheel with many of these things. Many other countries have the same problems with housing. There is state intervention in delivering housing in other countries. I have a friend who lives in Germany. He has been there since we both left college, many more years ago than I care to remember. It was only about two years ago that he finally bought a house in Germany. He was renting for over 30 years. That is what they do in Germany. It was a controlled rent that he could afford. He has two kids. As he went on in his career and his kids grew up, he managed to buy a house. I do not know how much he paid for it and I have not seen the house, but that is just the way it was. He was in a system where there was state intervention and people could not afford to buy a house. As he said to me, for the first 27 years of his working life, he could not afford to buy a house because he did not have enough money but in the last few years he got promotions, things went well and he was able to get the money to buy a house.

There are lessons to be learned from elsewhere. If people cannot afford to buy houses, help is needed. Help is available. The first home scheme is a good idea. It is run by a former colleague of mine from the NTMA, Michael Broderick, who is a good guy. That type of intervention happens. Again, I do not want to get into a policy area but we have to be realistic that if there are logjams, you have to try to figure out solutions. Sometimes the solutions are in other places, other countries and other experiences that you see if you can adapt to use here. I hope that answers the Senator's question.