Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

These are considerations that the Government always takes into account. However, we are dealing with a situation in which the whole building industry collapsed for reasons we are aware of. Many good builders can no longer build. We are trying to take initiatives to get it going again. We have succeeded to a great extent by removing the overhang in Dublin through sales of property by NAMA and IBRC, and there are cranes on the skyline again. We are so far away from one of these unsustainable building booms that I do not know why people talk about it. People can only analyse things through the lens of the past. They would want to start looking at the future and ask what we can do to put 25,000 houses a year into this country again when last year we built 8,000. Much of that needs to be done through supply-side measures. I will do an economic analysis on the subject matter of the question, and if I think it can improve supply, I will take action in the Finance Bill; if I think it will not, I will not.

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