Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I agree with my colleague, Deputy Robert Dowds, that this is a modest but positive measure which ought to be welcomed. For more than 20 years we have transferred our social housing needs to the private rented sector through a rental support system that has penalised people who want to go to work. We were importing workers to build apartments and houses for workers we were also importing. Nothing better highlights the folly of the policies we pursued than the conflicting contributions from colleagues in this city, in which there is now a housing shortage, and colleagues such Deputies James Bannon and Michael Fitzmaurice, whom I welcome to the House, who pointed out that we built houses where there were no people. We have houses, but they are not located where they are needed. I am glad that the Central Bank and the regulatory system are doing what they ought to have done in the past, but, in respect of the figure of 20%, I hope there will be a genuine public consultation process because having a figure of 20% is going too far at this juncture in dealing with the housing problem. It is only recently that banks began to loan again to young people seeking mortgages and the terms announced by the Central Bank are probably going too far. I hope it will respond to the public consultation process that it has initiated.

A problem appears to have arisen in that the few builders who have been left standing are having difficulties in sourcing credit because of their past records with the banks. Presumably, while stress tests are under way, the banks are not too distressed - if I may use that term - about this because it helps their internal ratios if they do not have to loan money to the building sector. An understated proportion of the population of the country are now engaged in construction and it seems that we could reasonably double the proportion at work in the construction sector to meet existing demand. Vigilance and monitoring will, of course, be required, but we should not go overboard. There is a demand and we should do what we can to encourage it being met.

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