Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Tánaiste mentioned the issue of the quality of the homes that are to be built, I note that deregulation happened in 1990. The measures introduced by Phil Hogan as Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to deal with the problems we have seen in construction will do nothing. The Government has still not gone back to inspections. Local authorities inspect between 10% and 15% of built properties and that is usually at only one stage of construction. This is outrageous. If the Government is interested in ensuring that houses are built properly, it must inspect them. Currently, we have the National Housing Authority, local authority housing departments and housing associations. It is all over the shop. There is no housing strategy.

The Tánaiste refers to bringing things in soon and I will be interested to see what that entails, but I suggest that before the Government implements a housing strategy that it reads "Spatial Justice and the Irish Crisis" by Gerry Kearns of NUI Maynooth and his colleagues. They point out that what has added to our problems is the way in which NAMA and the banks have behaved by throwing large quantities of stock onto the market to be bought by investment funds for half their value. That is what has happened.

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