Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

All of us in this House agree that the tariffs Trump is proposing are bad for the worldwide economy. Indeed, we could be facing an international "Trump slump", as it has been described. The fear of tariffs itself is having a destabilising effect across Ireland and across Europe. We all appreciate that the EU has to respond in a strategic manner to whatever comes forward from the US tomorrow, but equally, we have to control the controllables here at home. The Minister for Finance has pointed out the need to invest in infrastructure, an acknowledgement that, as is widely accepted, we simply do not have the critical public infrastructure that should be in place at this point in time. I refer to housing in particular. We all know that is the biggest crisis facing the Government.

This is why Labour is offering a constructive proposal. Our ObairGhearr scheme could be transformational. It could have made a very significant difference during the previous recession. It would have enabled us to hold onto more of our construction workers. That would have meant we could have delivered more homes. We might even have been able to deliver 40,000 homes last year had we enabled construction workers to stay in Ireland via a subsidised scheme such as we have seen in Germany. Will the Taoiseach review our scheme and look at it as a potential way to help households?

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