Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Let me go through what has been said. This is a simple Bill to prohibit the ripping off of young people buying houses. The Minister of State can put a long speech together but when one strips it down one realises it amounts to a statement to the effect that some builders from certain parts of the country, particularly Cork, discovered that they had, in a sellers' market, the capacity to make even more money from people who were already vulnerable. By God, did they go for it?

There are two lobby groups that invite me to meetings regularly to explain all their troubles, namely, the CIF and SIMI. I attend none of their meetings because neither the motor industry nor the construction industry needs to engage in the solicitation of many Members of the Oireachtas. They are doing bloody well as it is and do not need my concern.

The Minister of State said a great amount of time is taken up with an exchange of pleasantries, telephone calls, letters, requests and proposals between the Department and the CIF, both at national and Cork branch levels. Having had a substantial part of the personnel resource of his Department consumed by this issue, he now tells us he should not be doing this at all and that it should be done by somebody else. One does not have to be a particularly astute political analyst to realise he is effectively saying the Progressive Democrats, rather than the Fianna Fáil Party, should deal with the issue. Thus, members of the Fianna Fáil Party could say to their friends in the CIF, as they cough up large donations to the party, that they did their best and held up the process but that the crowd in the Progressive Democrats did not understand reality and gave in on it.