Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am informed that the Minister has written to the Ceann Comhairle to correct the record. I am confident he will do whatever is necessary in that regard.

What this is fundamentally about, and I think we will all agree on this, is helping people to buy their own home. I believe in home ownership and this Government believes in home ownership. Ireland is still a country where 65% to 70% of people own their own home. That is not the reality, however, for lots of people, particularly younger people and even those who are not that young. The question is what can we do. We have a lot of people who are paying €1,500 or €2,000 a month in rent, which are very high rents, and just about managing to do so, yet they cannot get a mortgage for a lower monthly figure than that. We need to help them in two ways. One way we are going to help them is with the local authority home loan, where people get a long-term, fixed-rate and low-rate mortgage they cannot get from the banks, thus enabling them to get an adequate mortgage to buy houses that are available. We are also going to help them with the shared equity schemes. I know people will say this could have an inflationary effect on house prices but what is the alternative to that? It is to leave them renting, and that will have an inflationary effect on rents.

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