Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

It is a unique opportunity and I am sure the Minister will enjoy Fathers' Day with his children. I certainly enjoyed Mothers' Day, but I could not get over the sight of these banners hung over the apartments around the Balally Luas station. The Luas station is tremendously popular and successful, as we knew it would be. This lovely shopping centre is directly across the road, and there are banners advertising tax breaks.

The people about whom Deputy Cowley and I are talking are driven into the private rented sector, very often with little security of accommodation. I dealt with a lady who had returned home approximately a year ago to retire and be near family having worked as a nurse in England up to the age of 66. As she had lived in hospital accommodation in the UK she never bought a place of her own. She has now returned to terribly expensive Ireland and is living in a converted garage or outhouse, for lack of a better word, which was the only accommodation she could find. While the landlord is very nice, the building is not of appropriate standard. I am helping her, as I am sure others are, to make an application to the local authorities in the Dublin area. However, I know the answer. This woman emigrated and gave years of service working in the UK. She lived in subsidised housing and has now exercised her right to come home to her own country. While she can get no benefit, the investor in Dundrum is being offered 42% marginal tax relief, which indicates something is wrong.

The Minister has spoken very convincingly about his sense of equity and fairness, which I accept. I accept his approach is different from that of his predecessor, Mr. McCreevy, with whom I had a very good relationship over many years even though our political approach was quite different. Mr. McCreevy told me he would turn the upper Shannon area into the Klondike for investors in housing, which he did, but what is the point of doing that if our elderly people and those in desperate need of housing get none of this benefit?

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