Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is no balance to the Deputy's argument; this is the point. I am able to stand here and talk to the electorate on their doorsteps and point to progress and also point to the more there is to do. The Deputy just wants to dismiss any of the progress, as though those extra 128,000 homes do not exist. I am interested in what she is saying now because she has set out her stall if she is to be in the next Government.

If I am to be in the next Government, the help-to-buy scheme is absolutely staying. If the Deputy wants to get rid of it, and if she wants to tell the people who are processing their applications right now with banks across the country that she is in favour of getting rid of it, fair play, that is her position. It is not mine, and I will not go into government with anybody who does not keep it. It needs to be kept, as does the first home scheme. Both of them need to be kept because they are practical levels of subsidy. Giving people back a little bit of their money to help them save a deposit is exactly what my party and this Government intend to continue to do.

When it comes to bulk buying, Deputy Cairns talks about spin and deflection but she does not say in her piece that we have taken more action on bulk buying and stamp duty as recently as a couple of weeks ago in the budget, where we again increased the stamp duty rate. When she talks about house prices never being higher, let us not ignore the analysis from the Central Bank as recently as last month that shows house prices, relative to household disposable income, at a ratio of 4.1, compared with 5.5 in 2007. I am aware the biggest issue facing people in this country, and facing our economy and society, is housing, and that is true, but I would much rather have a debate about how we can improve the initiatives we have in place to make them work for more people and get that housing supply from 40,000 to 60,000. This idea of telling people that no progress has been made in the last number of years is not borne out by fact. Some 500 people every single week, including in the Deputy’s constituency, are buying their first home and mortgage drawdowns for first-time buyers are at the highest level ever since 2007. They are also facts.

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