Michael McCarthy (Labour)

It may be nothing to a patron in the Fianna Fáil hospitality tent at the Galway races, but when one is pushed to the limit to obtain a mortgage to buy or build a house to start one's life, it is a considerable amount of money. The display of arrogance and ill manners by some Members of the House while other Members attempted to make fine and eloquent contributions on the debate is almost as galling as the fact that we must have the debate in the first place.

Why for once can this arch conservative Government not pursue the rich boys? Why not chase the developers and the multi-millionaire builders who pack the Fianna Fáil hospitality tent at the Galway races every year? Why chase the people at the other end of the market and add insult to injury by capping the rent allowance from health boards? It is disgraceful and appalling and sends out a stark and sinister message to young people who can no longer avail of the first-time buyer's grant that they will be forced onto local authority waiting lists. These have grown in County Cork by 75% in the last three years.

We have listened to assertions that the grant was never what it was supposed to be and that the Bacon reports were used to guide housing policy. In fact they were used to rush to the defence of a housing policy that would make the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in her day look like a baby with a bag of Jelly Tots.