Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

It is incredible that the Taoiseach did not refer to the 10,000 affordable homes which were flagged initially as being an important part of the Sustaining Progress agreement. Since he signed off on a promise to provide 10,000 homes as an incentive to workers to agree Sustaining Progress, which has only about 12 months to run, not a brick has been put on top of a brick to achieve it. Is there any reason we should not accuse him of being guilty of a cruel deception, using the extreme concern of working people about the obscene profiteering in the housing industry, which has put a house out of the reach of a worker on an average wage, and getting a result by which workers agreed to go along with his programme but failing to deliver? Precisely what timescale has the Government set for the achievement of the building of 10,000 homes? I ask the Taoiseach not to give me the number of houses which will be built overall, etc. as I have that speech from a previous occasion. I want the specific details on that particular element.

Against a background in which the term "rip-off Ireland" has become accepted by people everywhere on the island as a result of their experiences and with prices of services and housing continuing to rip ahead, what moral right has the Government to insist that workers accept wage moderation and limits on wage increases, when it refuses to put any restraint on outright profiteering and rack-renting by a significant section of the landlord class which creates major difficulties for workers on ordinary to middle incomes?

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