Gerard Craughwell (Independent)

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to have a ticket to the rugby match. On my way back, as I was walking through Dublin city I was struck by the number of houses that were locked up with nobody living in them. On my drive home through Rathfarnham, I found an entire block of apartments empty. Close to Stillorgan, I saw another entire block of apartments empty. When I looked a little bit further into it, I found there are 81,000 addresses in Ireland that are unoccupied. Some of them are owned by AIB, some of them are owned by Pepper Finance and some of them are owned by vulture funds - who knows? - but they are empty and there is nobody in them. Today, AIB paid €305 million to buy back the 2% shareholding the Government still had in that bank. At the same time, the Minister has lifted the pay cap on senior bankers' salaries above €500,000 a year. I have to ask this: where are our priorities? I know there is a debate in the other House on homelessness and on Raise the Roof etc. I raise the 81,000 addresses with nobody in them and a bank that was saved thanks to the taxpayers of this country. Would that bank consider going back to the people, who are on their knees, and giving them a break? Maybe it could give them a 60-year mortgage, which they can pass on to their kids. At least they will have something to pass on. Give them a break. Instead of that, we saved them, and they save themselves by throwing all of the debt out to vulture funds that are now sitting back and waiting to make a profit. There is something terribly wrong when there are 81,000 addresses empty in this country and we see and hear of people who have nowhere to live. It really is outrageous. Yesterday evening, driving home, I listened to Deputy Matt Carthy on the radio talking about Ukrainian refugees and how we were maybe too generous towards them. How rich is that, when they will be outside the gate tonight protesting about homelessness etc.?