Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Government indicated it would keep the mortgage market under review, having regard to the information available from the Financial Regulator and banking sector. Is this the same Financial Regulator and banking sector that provided the Government with information on the state of the banks over the past year? This is hardly comfort to people worried about losing their jobs.

We can consider the position the Government has led us into. This country has had a number of years of record housing output. Over the past three years we produced 90,000, 80,000 and 75,000 housing units respectively. In that period, the Government managed to bring about a 30% increase in the number of people on council housing waiting lists. There are 60,000 families——

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