Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If a contest in fluency and verbosity was an Olympic sport, you would win a gold medal, but it does not build houses. We are not afraid to take more radical steps when it comes to housing. That is why we asked the Housing Commission to come up with ideas. How do you build a sustainable model that does not have boom and bust, with ghost estates one year and no housing supply the next? That is what we are doing. Deputy McDonald asked how we can stand over €10 billion. There was political consensus in this House that we needed to take steps to help people in the here and now, and Deputy McDonald led the charge. Deputy Dessie Ellis said, "RAS has provided many people with housing and allowed them to dig their way out of the poverty trap." Deputy McDonald is now criticising the expenditure on what a Sinn Féin TD said was a scheme that helped to dig their way out of the poverty trap. Sinn Féin proposed legislation to make sure that people could get their HAP applications processed quicker, calling for the Minister for housing to increase the housing payment.

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