John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

-----find themselves unemployed and who have little prospect of working in the construction industry in this country in the foreseeable future.

I fully understand why the Government has brought forward the provisions it has introduced this evening. As implied by Deputy Rabbitte, the market was over-fuelled. There are more than 2,000 ghost estates, not just in urban centres but in other centres across the country. Seán Lemass, the former esteemed Taoiseach, reputedly said, "Tell me how many bags of cement you sold last year and I'll tell you the state of your economy." I appeal to Members of this House, in accelerating our desire to ensure a property bubble of the nature that occurred does not recur, to remind ourselves that one day not so far away a future Government will have to come into this House and ignite the spark of the construction industry again. Its failure to do that at some stage in the future will mean a continuum of unemployment for thousands of ordinary workers. When we use euphemisms to describe the collapse of the building industry, let us also ensure we remind ourselves of where precisely we are coming from, where we are and to where we must get back.

See this speech in context