Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If the Deputy thinks it is a bad idea, he should give us another idea rather than sitting there laughing as if he knows everything, because we will work with whatever good ideas there are to try to get people into homes. Look at what was happening last night in the North. What Sinn Féin is doing is an absolute disgrace and all its Members of this House do is laugh at people when they put forward reasonable and proper solutions to the housing crisis.

The Government rejected our idea even though it said it was studying the VAT reduction. However, if the Government is rejecting that it should come forward with its own proposals on affordability for people who are in the gap where they cannot afford to buy and are too rich to be in a council house. Let us help those people. Let us get our people housed and educated. We can do this together by working across the House. There are different ways of doing this. It is not just the Government and the Opposition anymore; it is everybody giving their input. Sláintecare was the example and we can do something similar on a range of other issues while still holding our viewpoints and differences.

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