Larry Butler (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. He has done outstanding work since going into the Department. He has used his imagination, skill and knowledge to put packages together for local authorities. Last week, I heard him speak in Kilkenny and I was very impressed with his approach to housing.

As we know, local authorities have a glut of affordable housing in stock. It is fair to state that we must examine how to deal with this but there is no great wisdom as to how to do so. From the figures I have examined it is obvious that if we have a surplus we should examine putting at least half of that stock into social housing. Dublin City Council has 4,000 people on the housing list. This is a huge improvement from approximately 6,000 people.

The Minister of State has been making inroads on social housing. This is an opportunity to examine putting a percentage of these houses back into social housing as this would help us out. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has a substantial amount of affordable housing on its list but 2,500 people are on the social housing list. They must be cheaper because they were built at affordable prices even with land prices being high at the time of purchase. The houses are still cheaper than if the local authority had built them itself. It is well worth examining this.

I would change slightly the criteria in favour of people not eligible at present who might be outside the salary limits. I would allow leverage on this. One would not be criticised for allowing some affordable units to become social units and selling off the others to balance the moneys which would be spent in this regard. This would shift some of the stock.

It is unfair of Senator Coffey to criticise the banks. Recently, a few people who got into trouble with their mortgages came to me and I had the good fortune to go to the local banks with them. The banks were most considerate in terms of how they would deal with their problems. This is a personal experience I had.