Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

We ruined our country once through house prices and I find it utterly unbelievable that colleagues of mine on the Government side of the House have welcomed the stir in the market and the increase in house prices . Surely the Government must aspire politically to more than wanting to preside over another housing boom. Our aspiration should be a robust housing policy which makes housing affordable, credit available and tries to deal once and for all with the housing crisis.

It was difficult to come up with an amendment to a well reasoned motion but the amendment is also well reasoned and mentions the NAMA properties. I welcome the fact we might find a use for 2,000 NAMA properties. However, tens of thousands of people cannot afford a house and we require a bigger solution for this issue. The Minister is moving as best she can on rent supplement. A small amendment recently caused political grief in the other House, but rent supplement is not the be all and end all. It is a tiny part of what should be a much larger solution.

Let us have this debate on rent subsidy, RAS, which has been a fine scheme, probably the only bit of fresh thinking on housing policy in the past ten or 15 years. However, we really need a substantive debate on housing. We need a new political definition for housing and a strong political statement from Government about people's entitlement to housing, whether this concerns rural planning, well-built urban estates or well-managed streets and cityscapes. We need that debate.

The commencement of the Sinn Féin motion mentions the universal Declaration of Human Rights, etc. Sometimes these declarations are full of fine words. However, it should not be beyond possibility in a civilised political society, which one hopes ours still is, to ensure there is adequate housing. Rent supplement is a tiny part of the solution. We need that substantive debate on housing. The Minister has her role to play but her Cabinet colleagues with responsibility for housing must be the senior players in this debate.