Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)

I will direct my comments and observations to the Taoiseach and former Minister for Finance. Before I entered this House, I would have said that the former Minister for Finance and current Taoiseach was the one man who nurtured and developed the Celtic tiger. Why are we here today where we are now looking at a deficit of €3 billion? It is because of the former Minister for Finance and his actions and inaction in respect of the economy when he was at the Department of Finance.

As the new Minister for Finance has said, it was his misfortune that he inherited the finance portfolio. The construction industry is the one factor that has caused many of the problems we face today. I remind my colleagues opposite that house completions stood at 30,000 in 1999 and 60,000 in 2002. The differential between the stamp duty take in 1999 and 2002 was €0.7 billion to €1 billion. In 2003, we built 70,000 units with a stamp duty take of €1.6 billion. In 2004, 78,000 units were built with a stamp duty take of €2 billion. In 2005, 88,000 units were built with a stamp duty take of €2.7 billion. In 2006, 90,000 units were built with a stamp duty of €3.7 billion were built.

We should note the explosion in stamp duty take during this period and its direct relationship with the construction industry and economy. According to an article in the Irish Examiner on 17 August 2007:

Detailed results from the 2006 census on housing show 266,000 units — or about 15% of the total housing stock — were classified as vacant. It means nearly a sixth of 1.46 million homes in the Republic are lying empty.

The article went on to state that:

However, only 50,000 out of 266,000 unoccupied dwellings are formally classified as holiday homes, leaving 175,000 houses and 42,000 apartments across the country empty.

Neither we, nor the then Minister for Finance, saw it coming. Following the 2006 census, he failed to notice that one in six properties in this country was vacant. This clearly pointed to a construction bubble. It was a boom in VAT and stamp duty receipts of a once-off nature. As Minister for Finance, the Taoiseach failed to notice that the swell in public coffers was directly related to the construction industry. Rather than exercise responsibility, he exercised recklessness and squandered the public purse in purchasing the 2007 general election. The Taoiseach and former Minister for Finance failed to manage the finances of the country. Fianna Fáil has failed in government and has failed the people of the country. The young people who had to take out a mortgage of €100,000 to give it to the Taoiseach for the pleasure of a roof over their heads will not forget it.

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