Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Opposition never talks about the hard yards, the issues that are actually involved in delivering housing supply, such as, the reforms to the planning system; access to affordable finance; the apprenticeship system; tackling materials inflation; land availability; and access to private capital. If we want to deliver 33,000 homes per year, and the Opposition says we need more than that, then we need at least €7.5 billion in private capital to complement what the State is doing. The truth is the Opposition is hostile to private investment and hostile to the market. The Opposition thinks we can just say we will build 20,000 social and affordable homes and it will happen just like that. The Opposition says it would spend all of the money we have. We have that money because we did not pursue the anti-enterprise policies advocated by the Opposition, because we did not oppose every EU treaty, and because we did not oppose every free-trade agreement this country signed up to. Were we to do that we would not have the resources the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the Government are using to tackle this housing crisis in the best and most effective way we possibly can.

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