Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I did not say it was a comparison, I said it was an analogy. It illustrates how uniquely sensitive to the interests and considerations of the building industry Fianna Fáil has been, is and proposes to continue to be. I do not understand the position of its partners in Government, who are committed unequivocally to an economic model that involves genuine competition between people in a genuine marketplace. The Progressive Democrats founder and first leader was particularly eloquent on this matter.

It was rather telling that this most passionate advocate of business and free competition was not offered a single directorship by an Irish company after he left politics because he believed in genuine competition, which is something a huge chunk of Irish business, particularly in the building industry, does not believe in. They want a controlled, easy market where the risk is minimal. What does the construction industry do in areas where this is going on? It transfers the risk to somebody else.

I have friends who had builders whose businesses collapsed at the last stage of purchase of a property and who discovered that they did not own the property and their payments were gone. They had to buy their property twice because of the nefarious activities of builders who went through the stage payments procedure. It took years to do something about company law to deal with that during which there was much pussyfooting and delay. We saw it in the car insurance industry where the report of the review body lay in a Department for years before it was finally published. It then turned out that the huge losses the industry was supposed to be making were entirely fictitious.

It is a pity that we cannot do what should be done, which is to pass this Bill on Second Stage. The Minister of State can then say that the view of his own party and everybody in Leinster House is that this is part of history. He can say there are two ways of dealing with this, namely, putting together a code of practice, backed up by legislation, or introducing legislation to tell us what to do. He can then ask Members which course of action they wish to take. Instead, the Minister, with all the power of Government, is saying he is grateful to a private lobby group because it agrees not to rip off its customers. Those are extraordinary words from a Minister of State.

One of the groups that made the most money out of our booming economy have kindly agreed, in the past month or two and under enormous pressure to bail out Fianna Fáil, to enter into discussions about putting an end to ripping off their own customers. We are supposed to be grateful for that. There is only one response. We must have a vote on this Bill and let Fianna Fáil show that when it comes to the crunch that it stands with the builders against those who must deal with builders.