Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is still unacceptable but it is down significantly. Since this Government came into office it has done its best to address the problems that developed at a time when the money was flowing through the country and terrible decisions were made. We have to clean up that mess with very little money. It is all very well to say we should be spending money and constructing houses and so on but I have not been able to do that and neither has my colleagues for the past three years because the previous Government entered into agreements that tied us down to serious cuts in capital spending and there was no way out. That was a formal sovereign agreement, signed by a previous Government on behalf of the Irish people. We were committed to it and we could not spend money we did not have.

I welcome the fact that the Technical Group has raised this important issue. I accept it is a serious problem. I do not deny it is a serious problem but I do not accept that the current Government has created it. That attitude has been building up for several years. Many of the Deputies opposite have spoken in previous debates about people on housing waiting lists for nine or ten years.

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