Paul Bradford (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, along with the majority of my colleagues, give general support to the proposal on mortgage lending made by the Governor of the Central Bank. It is not perfect - no public policy ever has been or will be - but the Governor made a reasonable attempt to strike the right balance. Perhaps some further tweaking will be required but that can be worked on as we see the impact of the policy.

Senator Coghlan made an interesting comment, which shows where the problem really lies. He correctly stated that, on house prices, it is all about Dublin. I suspect the reason for this is our failure down the decades to put in place a proper regional strategy. A new and dynamic regional strategy will be a bridge too far during the Government's remaining term of office or during the term of the next Government. However, it is something upon which we must reflect because the problem will continue to be about Dublin - whether it is a housing, joblessness or homelessness crisis - while we continue to focus on our one large city and do not put the resources, planning, development and structures into places such as Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny, Galway, Sligo and Tralee. This must mean building significant population hubs around the country while also looking at planning, development, housing and industry from a regional perspective.

While we have a long and busy session before us, I again ask the Leader to arrange a substantive debate on regional planning and development. A few ham-fisted efforts have been made to address this, including decentralisation, the creation of hub towns and gateways. However, these were nothing more than one-page electioneering stunts and inevitably did not work. There has to be scope and space for significant regional planning in the country, across the broad spectrum of development. I ask the Leader to set aside time for a debate on regionalisation at local government and industrial level as it is very much a part of the solution to many of the problems we have in this country.