Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

They are clear, in that the cost for the number of years in question will be approximately €240,000 for the provision of a house to someone on a local authority housing list. To purchase and finance a house over the same period would require €520,000. These are the figures on today's costs, which are available on the website.

The old hairy chestnut of bailing out builders has been pegged out time and again. Were we to buy houses tomorrow morning, who would provide them other than builders? This year, builders will provide the houses my Department has supplied €1.2 billion to construct and acquire. This is the long and the short of it. There is no bail out. My job is to try to get as many houses as possible for the 55,000 people on our housing lists. Were I to take the road mentioned by the Deputy, I would need €4 billion to deal with 20,000 houses.

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