Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Under Fianna Fáil, the Ballymun houses were built to meet a housing crisis. That did not work as families could not live in those high-rise apartments. It did not make sense but at the time they were the best thing since the sliced pan. In our county, there were houses built with prefabricated structures and after ten years they began to fall apart. Perhaps Deputy Scanlon remembers how we built houses with no chimneys because at the time electricity was so cheap there was an idea that we could run them on it. That did not work either and we had to retrofit chimneys to hundreds of houses.

We have been here before and we do not need to go there again. The Labour Party Members have left but as Minister, former Deputy Jimmy Tully did a fantastic job in housing. He dealt very effectively with a major housing crisis. I ask Fianna Fáil to think again about this. We could make much progress across this House rather than dividing, which is what Fianna Fáil wants to do.

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