John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What is needed is a policy that will correct from the centre what is being collected unfairly from the people who are creating employment for 800,000 people in this country.

The National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, was mentioned in the context of the provision of houses.

NAMA will provide up to 20,000 units up to 2020, which comes to 4,000 units per year. Of these, 90% will be in Dublin with 400 units for the rest of the country. Kilkenny alone has 3,500 people on its housing waiting list. These figures are massaged because those on the housing assistance payment and other schemes are considered to be adequately housed and, therefore, not on the housing list. No account is taken of those in hotels or sleeping on our streets. Every county has that problem. The Minister, however, decides that 90% of the houses NAMA will provide will be located in Dublin.

NAMA offered 6,569 housing units but only 2,500 units were taken up from that offer. What is the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, doing about this? A significant number of small builders who, if given the proper opportunity with the support of each and every local authority, would help to deliver houses on the ground. That is the direction we should be taking. Large housing estates built back in the 1950s by the local authorities to this day remain the successful centrepiece of housing people across this country.

Mortgage arrears were not dealt with in this budget. Up to 17,000 repossession orders exist which means people will be dumped on the streets and on to the housing list with no solution for them. Neither has the issue of the 38,000 mortgages in arrears for over two years been addressed.

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