Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was in Blanchardstown during the recent by-election when I spoke to two estate agents, both of whom told me that people were walking into their offices with mortgage approval from one or other of the two main banks or some other arrangement, but there was no property available to sell to them. That is part of the construction challenge. The construction industry needs to be able to step up to the mark with a funding stream to provide private housing where appropriate and at the scale required.

The Deputy suggested the TTIP was a charter for multinationals. What is his focus? Does he not understand that I was just talking about small Irish firms that employed 100,000 people across America? Does he not understand that when quotas go next year, we will have the most productive agri-sector on the planet and that one element of the TTIP arrangements, if they are concluded successfully, will allow for many Irish firms to be able to send fresh Irish agricultural produce to the United States, with benefits for the economy and jobs in production on and off farms? These are not multinationals. It is not a charter for multinationals, rather it is a charter for economic expansion on both sides of the Atlantic.

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