Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

No, this is relevant. Other speakers spoke at length about what caused the crisis. The Minister has proposed that developments in excess of 500 units, which in Dublin west in my constituency is a relatively small level of development, of which there are many in my area - in other areas there are bigger developments - be allowed to bypass the planning process of the local authorities. Deputy Barry Cowen was quoted as saying that he felt, if necessary - this is the reason I come back to these events - the Dáil should sit all night to pass the necessary legislation. He was recommending that the number of units involved could be as low as 150 and possibly as low as 30. In terms of the lessons being drawn from what happened in the run up to 2008, we should not abandon proper planning in this country to allow a free-for-all at a time when we have an incredible housing crisis and we need thousands of units built every year. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. If we cut local authorities and local residents out of the picture we will have learned nothing at all of value from the terrible things that happened to people in this country as a result of bad and poor regulation.

This legislation is not just about the past: it is also about our future and how we respond and recover. Unemployment in this country is down to 7.8%. Youth employment has more than halved but is still unacceptably high. We have a way to go in that regard. Areas like the south east and parts of the centre of Ireland are still heavily affected by unacceptably high rates of unemployment. We still have a lot of work to do. We need to learn the lessons of the past and to look to models that will work. If Brexit goes badly we will be faced with real challenges over the next two years. Most commentators in the UK are already talking about a recession in the UK. The value of sterling has plummeted. This will probably lead to greater traffic going northward, which will affect towns like Dundalk which had been doing well for a number of months on the basis of the strength of sterling. I know that in political ideology the fate of a town like Dundalk and the fact that it was beginning to be prosperous might not count for much.

As we move to the discussion of how to manage our economy so that we have the type of Ireland we want, a society with people at work and with good, strong public services, particularly in health and education and social protection, then we need people contributing tax and social insurance so that we can afford the services that I believe we want. Although this legislation is extremely technical - as I said, I am not a lawyer - it may help us to learn about what happened, what we got right and did not get right and the solutions. As I said, we will need solutions in the time to come to the challenges of Brexit.

I wish the judge well. I congratulate Deputy Catherine Murphy on her work over a lengthy time to elicit answers in relation to these matters. I doubt if we will get all the answers but there are key modules of this that should be the focus of concentration. If they are addressed we may learn something valuable that will help us to avert future crises by which we may be threatened.

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