Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Under the pact, EU Governments are supposed to bring their deficits to below 3% of GDP and debts are not supposed to be higher than 60% of GDP. However, the rules seem to allow some budget items to be stripped out, including the cost of extraordinary events. It looks like Italy, Lithuania, Austria, Spain and France are going to break the rules around the 3% in 2016 and yet Ireland insists on being a real good boy. We do not want to break the rules. Recently, the Commission said that the budgetary impact of the exceptional inflow of refugees would be taken into account when assessing possible deviations from the rules for 2015 and 2016. Finance Ministers have already said they wanted money spent on dealing with the current flow of refugees not to count towards national deficits under the block's budgetary rules. France says it has huge security concerns and, oh, may have to break the rules as well. Rome has requested extra leeway within the EU rules worth 0.2% of GDP to compensate for extraordinary costs incurred on foot of the refugee crisis.

In Ireland, there is a lack of social housing and of affordable private housing. There is a lack of affordable rental units. What we have is a lack of money and of political will to address the problem. We are not building houses. One of the main reasons is that the Government has waited on the private sector - the markets - to come in and do the business for the last five years but that has not happened. If the Government wants to solve the housing crisis, it must start spending money. Where is it going to get it? I suggest it does what Lithuania, Italy, France, Spain and Austria are doing and breaks the rules. What about us borrowing €10 billion at less than 1% in order to invest in housing? It is not rocket science and would make a great deal of sense.

Aside from the fact that the State needs to directly build social housing in the range of approximately €10 billion in the next two years to alleviate the problem, it should organise finance if it wants the private sector to build houses also, which it does, as the banks will not provide it. One cannot get money out of a bank in Ireland today to build houses unless one is a US investment fund, in which case one would not need it. US funds have access to their own money. Irish builders cannot get money to build houses. A scheme must be designed whereby the Government - the State - plays a role in raising finance in order to stimulate the construction of housing. If the next Government is not prepared to challenge Europe, as France, Spain, Italy, Lithuania and Austria are prepared to do, it will be a disgrace.

The refugee crisis in Europe is a terrible one. I agree that countries should be given leeway to deal with it. That is a far better reason than allowing the French to spend billions of euro on security after the ISIS attack, which was a response to France's bombing the living daylights out of homes in Iraq and Syria. How can anyone argue that our drastic housing crisis does not merit extra help from Europe and leeway in the rules? If the French security issue is worth breathing space in the fiscal rules, how in God's name can Europe argue that we are not entitled to the same? It has even told us that our infrastructural investment levels are too low. They are some of the lowest in Europe. This is a no-brainer.

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