Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I call for the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to come to the House at an early stage. I am not looking for him to come today. We need an urgent debate on home ownership. It is something to which many of us aspire in our lifetime, and in the past it was possible for many of us to achieve it, as we had a home ownership rate of more than 80%, which was one of the highest rates in Europe. This figure has fallen to below 70%. I join my colleague, Senator Darragh O'Brien, in having serious reservations about the imposition of a requirement for purchasers to provide a 20% deposit. When we bought our first house we decided we would live in a caravan to save on rent so that we would have a deposit. Many people would not have got on the housing ladder if they had needed a very high deposit. Protection of the banks continues to be put ahead of the interests of the country. I can understand that people on six-figure salaries of €200,000 or more may not be able to see the difficulties of people earning between €30,000 and €70,000, but it would be a great saving to the State if we could assist these people in achieving this aspiration of many. It is right that the extent of the loan should be decided having regard to income ratios but, having said this, I feel a more modest deposit of 10% would be adequate. We need an urgent debate before the Governor of the Central Bank gets carried away with his own thinking on this.

The tribunals which were such a scandal in the country have come back to haunt us. Those who were here over the previous Seanad terms, going back to 2000, have heard me say this before. The manner in which they were run, the huge and exorbitant costs and the pedantic approach taken by the chairmen has led to a situation in which their findings are being successfully challenged in court. At the time, I remember quoting Mr. Justice Adrian Hardiman of the Supreme Court-----