Jim Higgins (Fine Gael)

They were relying on the grant and have suffered as a result of its abolition, irrespective of any later decisions on the part of the Minister. He may have breached Cabinet confidentiality today but did not do so in the run-up to the announcement of the decision. Those who had not signed a contract were caught and are still bearing the brunt of the pain of his decision.

The promise to introduce the £1,000 grant was probably the only sensible proposal in the infamous 1977 manifesto. It succeeded in swinging a considerable number of votes and seats and helped to give Fianna Fáil an unprecedented majority of 20 seats. It is simply untrue to claim that wiping the grant off the face of the earth is of no consequence. Senator Mansergh said it was an inefficient method of helping first-time buyers but I would like him to outline an efficient system that will compensate for this considerable loss. As far as young people are concerned, a grant is a grant, money in hand is money in hand and a relief is a relief.

Senator Mansergh made the point that the maintenance of the grant would cause house prices to continue to increase, thus necessitating larger loans. We are all familiar with the practices of the building trade in respect of reliefs and concessions, whether they are tax reliefs or grants. There is no doubt that they were gobbled up in many instances by unscrupulous builders who saw the grant as a neat device for increasing house prices.

We have a major problem trying to enable young people to put a roof over their heads, not only in Dublin. Senator Mansergh mentioned the manipulation of the market by the building trade. It is patently wrong that six or seven large building enterprises can control matters by sitting on rezoned land banks for which they have got planning permission. They release these areas on a drip-by-drip basis to ensure market prices are kept high and inflated. The same problem is evident in rural towns.

Something major will have to be done. The Minister should recommend at Cabinet to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government that land banks on the periphery of every town and some villages should be built up by local authorities which would be fully serviced with a water supply, sewerage systems, telephone cables and electricity. They could be sold off at a reasonable price.