Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise a number of points which I believe are pressure points and which are leading to overheating and other risks in the economy. The first is that we are now, in a way, back to an old Fianna Fáil model, which the Government has embraced, of allowing land prices to soar without restriction. This is great for people who own land and are sitting on it, but the fact is that in large parts of Dublin West, for instance, there has been a tenfold to 15-fold increase in land values and costs on the position a number of years ago. We might have expected a 100% to 300% increase, but the level of increases now is positively dangerous.

Many of the people buying or selling this land will effectively pay no tax on it.

The second point relates to the building industry's role in the housing shortages we referenced earlier. Not enough apprentices are being trained. Progress has been made and I was heavily involved with that in my time as Tánaiste. We must now import construction workers from other countries. The rising cost of houses as a result of these two issues is leading to major pressure on wages.

See this speech in context