Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)

We have all talked to people in our clinics - pensioners who have lost everything, young couples who cannot pay their mortgages, business people weeping in our offices because they cannot pay the faceless companies for rent hikes in shopping centres all over the land - all because the banks have now put the squeeze on or, in some cases, lent too freely and in a profligate fashion. We want to see the Office of Corporate Enforcement bring a rapid conclusion to its study of what is to happen to those who brought this country to the brink of bankruptcy.

Retribution alone will not lead to recovery. NAMA is about ensuring that the Irish taxpayer - the householder, the small or large businessman, the farmer - can get access to credit again. As someone from a background in the SME community I know the importance of credit, bridging loans, overdraft facilities, and lending power, which has dried up over the past year. There are people in the private sector who are willing to take a 25% wage cut in order to support their employers who have given them jobs over the years, particularly in the retail sector, where there have been fall-offs of up to 43% in the book trade and the shoe and clothes trade. The Government, as the Minister reminded us yesterday, has played its part this year with actions such as the establishment of the credit clearing group, the export stabilisation fund and the job subsidy scheme to help those who need credit and ensure banks are providing credit where it is justified. The provision that will be introduced to ensure the banks lend a certain amount of money is vital, and is something the Green Party is pleased to have achieved in the legislation. The amendment must be clear and offer relentless oversight of the banks in this regard.

Amendments have been put forward to ensure transparency in the NAMA legislation. The criminalisation of lobbying and quarterly reports to the Minister are important. We have had light-touch regulation and seen the departure of the chief executive of the Financial Regulator. We want to make sure these mistakes do not happen again. It is difficult to be in Government at a difficult time, but we will not shirk the responsibility of doing the right thing for the country. I would like to see the establishment of an Oireachtas sub-committee to monitor the work of NAMA and to scrutinise the Minister on those quarterly reports.

We all know that planning reform and the social dividend are key to making sure we are not reduced to these circumstances again. It is sad to see Deputy Rabbitte find one of the key Green Party components of the Bill so amusing. It was perverse of him to be so amused that this legislation is being used for social gain and the common good, which I would have thought a core Labour Party principle. This legislation will be used to help alleviate the cost and pressure on the State to provide land for our schools and land banks. I do not think there are many people around the country who have waited for years to see schools built - waited in vain because of the punitive cost - who would share the Deputy's humour at this initiative of social dividend.

The social dividend aspect of this legislation, combined with reforms in other areas, provides a real opportunity to address the issues of housing supply and demand and standards which plagued this country during the boom years. It is an opportunity for us to undo the damage of a property market in which more than 41% of new houses were acquired as investments or second homes and now remain idle. We all know them in our constituencies; they are the houses with piles of leaflets, advertisements for Lidl and Aldi and Deputies' newsletters in the doors. This was a market in which the number of social and affordable houses slumped to less than 1% of total housing stock in 2007 - which is a scandal - and in which a shamefully high proportion of rented accommodation did not meet minimum legal standards.

We need to return to a housing environment in which basic housing needs guide the market, not speculation and property investment, which puts developers and landlords ahead of access to affordable housing. These are policies which need to be implemented in tandem with the NAMA legislation. Let us not forget there are hundreds of thousands of young couples who might never be able to afford a house unless we do something about the housing bubble.

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