Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I agree with the request by Senator Tuffy for a broad debate on housing. Many Senators are members of local authorities and, while we could request further financial assistance for our housing budgets, one of the problems faced by local authorities is their inability to complete their housing programmes each year. Our housing policies are enormously conservative in terms of, among other things, design. The Minister needs to take charge of the situation. A debate on how we should plan not only the housing budgets but also the programmes in a broad way for the future would be helpful.