Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Tánaiste is correct that I have experience of the run-up to budgets over time. It is my experience that Ministers do test run proposals to see how they will fly. We all have experience of that. When I see a particular proposal attached to a particular Minister's name, I know what it is, namely, test flying.

We need to be clear. If this budget is to be about housing, it cannot be about the policy platforms which delivered an economic collapse. The solution to housing we can debate separately but it is largely a question of supply. The Government has suggested giving public lands, which we had to defend to keep in public ownership in the past, to private developers and where 60% of the housing will be by definition unaffordable, if only 40% is going to be affordable. This is the wrong way to go. If that is to be compounded by giving further tax incentives and tax breaks to the developers, then we have learned nothing over the decade of economic collapse. Will the Tánaiste express his own view that this is not the way to go?

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