Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When I was a child my family lived in a county council house. The reality is that the opportunity we had then is denied to many people nowadays. At the time my parents used a scheme to move on to private ownership and avail of a grant of £5,000. This was approximately 30 years ago. For them and for many others social housing became a steppingstone to private ownership. For other people this will not be the case but there is nothing wrong with that. Social housing can be an end in itself for many people. Anyway, the opportunity is simply being denied to thousands of families because social houses are not being built, the sector has ground to a halt and there is a major deficit at the moment. Will the Minister of State explain why it is impossible to construct a commercial arrangement whereby some of the funds could be used to construct social housing to meet the crisis need that exists?

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