Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

I congratulate Deputy Gilmore on the motion and the excellent policy document he produced lately on housing in Ireland. Public representatives are very accessible in Ireland, unlike in other countries where people do not see them between one election and the next. Housing is a constant theme of representations by people at one's home or advice centre or on the street. Yesterday morning, I spoke to ten women in Knocknaheeny, Cork, about women's participation in politics and the necessity to vote. Of the ten women, five approached me afterwards about their children's need for housing. That group is representative of the area. It is frightening that when the Minister of State and I bought our first houses, the average mortgage was for 15 years. At the time, unemployment was at its height but I could still pay off the price of my house within 15 years. My daughter and her partner, who have good jobs, have taken out a 30-year mortgage. We must ask ourselves questions about this situation. Where is our value system? What are we doing about our children and their future?

An affordable housing scheme is being undertaken in Cork and successful applicants recently received a letter stating they had qualified. They then received a second letter asking them to obtain a mortgage, which they did. Only one or two banks are participating in the scheme, which is outrageous. They should be ashamed of themselves but when was a bank ever embarrassed about anything? However, the bank in Cork has refused mortgages to applicants on the scheme. One couple, with both partners working, pay €1,200 a month in rent for themselves and two children. They cannot be considered by the local authority for social housing. While they are considered well off enough to house themselves, they were refused a mortgage of €180,000. That is scandalous. People with reasonable incomes are being refused mortgages and they are falling outside the affordable housing loop.

I was informed by a young woman who deals with mortgage applicants in the bank that she had met several people seeking loans under the affordable housing scheme who had been refused. She said she is seriously considering not voting anymore because the next customer was a property developer seeking a mortgage for his twentieth house. He was on his way to the manager's office because, naturally, he would not have to stand at the counter like the rest of the plebs. He boasted it would not cost him a penny because of tax incentives. That is the society the Minister of State's Government has created and encouraged.

At the conclusion of the debate, the Minister of State will tell the House how great he is and how many houses he is providing. He will also have the impertinence to tell Members that if they have individual cases of people who cannot be housed, they can approach him and he will sort them out. That is not how it works. People have a right to a roof over their heads and to shelter and they should not be in bondage to landlords or banks for the rest of their lives for the privilege. The Government is a disgrace because it has allowed the housing market to escalate out of control. The price of houses has increased tenfold over the past five years, but the Minister of State sits in the House as if it has nothing to do with him and he is an innocent bystander. Young couples are desperately worried. People in their twenties never worried about the Bundesbank and interest rates before but they are worried now.

See this speech in context