Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I congratulate our Special Olympians. I think 73 of them participated in the games. Along with their families and their coaches, they have done our country proud. When you see them performing and clutching the Irish flag, you can see that they are proud people. They have such great supporters as well. I am sure everybody will support my comments in congratulating them and wishing them well.

Second, I welcome the fact in the month of May, more mortgages were approved than in any period since 2011. This is a clear signal that Government housing policy is working. Just short of 5,000 mortgages were approved in May, valued at €1.4 billion. I am not saying that the housing crisis is over; it is not. Clearly, it is a positive step that people are finding ways onto the property ladder. The help-to-buy scheme and the first home scheme, in particular, are actually working for people.From dealing with people, meeting them and pointing them in the right direction, I know they are having success in that regard, and my colleagues throughout the country tell me the same is happening elsewhere. Of course, we always have to be cautious of the continuing rise in interest rates and strive to control inflation because the last thing we want is people, especially first-time buyers, getting into difficulty because of the continuing increases in interest rates. I hope we are now near the end of those rises and that people who have planned for the future and bought property will be in a position to be able to continue to pay those mortgages and not go into arrears.

I think this is a good story and I hope it will continue. What we all want to see is more housing, more people being able to buy houses and more people having a roof over their head. That is extremely important.