Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

We have also heard members of the Green Party, in particular, engaging in the blame game and trying to blame councillors for excessive residential zoning. This is possibly the case, as there was a lot of zoning. I must state publicly, however, that zoning a patch of land or a field for residential use does not necessarily mean that that land will be given planning permission for building by the local authority. This has been seen in many instances in which planning permission has been refused, for technical reasons or otherwise, for zoned residential land. Thus, it is not true that only councillors were to blame for the property bubble and the building boom. Developers, banks, the Government and the local authorities themselves played a large role. Now that the bubble has burst and we are in a crisis, we need to learn from what happened, move on and find solutions. For that reason I am happy this survey was done.

The survey probably does not take account of finished estates that have experienced problems owing to a lack of adequate infrastructure and poor building standards. As recently as last winter, when we had a freeze over a period of weeks, we saw the problems experienced by many local authorities and private estates throughout the country due to incorrect placement of water pipes and other infrastructure. The residents of these estates - these are occupied houses - are still experiencing problems that have not been addressed. Many of these estates were certified by professional engineers, architects and quantity surveyors and were declared by local authorities to have been completed to the proper standard. Why has none of the persons who signed off on these estates been challenged in the courts? Why has their insurance cover not been claimed against by developers or local authorities to ensure inadequate infrastructure is put right? That is something that must be dealt with.

The Minister of State mentioned bonds from builders. These, unfortunately, are just too small to meet the need for major infrastructural correction. Such bonds were intended to be used to reinstate footpaths, install lighting and so on - simple, small jobs. They certainly were not intended to provide moneys to address major deficiencies in the infrastructure of unfinished estates. Unfortunately, we have missed the boat in that regard. Much work is to be done in terms of recouping money to correct sub-standard infrastructure in such estates.

The National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis at NUI Maynooth released figures for unoccupied units in July of this year. The Minister of State mentioned that many of those figures may have been incorrect, but I would be interested to hear his views on them. Has anyone in the Department compared the results of this analysis against the survey that has just been completed by the Department? There are serious differences in the two sets of figures. A further debate will be required another day to ensure we have the correct figures as a national baseline. Whatever measures we come up with, it is essential that the baseline figures are correct and factual.

The Minister of State mentioned that more than 33,000 vacant units are either complete or almost complete. More than 100,000 households are on local authority waiting lists for social housing. Some of those people may already be in rent allowance schemes or other such initiatives.