SEANAD REPORT:TALK OF the number of people who would have gone into negative equity in terms of the housing market was somewhat theoretical, Fiona O'Malley (PD) said. The slow-down in the price of housing had been described as a disaster, she said.
"I think people need to get a slight grip on things. A cooling down was probably no bad thing because it meant that house prices have reached a sustainable level."
People had been beginning to use their homes in a speculative way, and that was not what most people had bought their homes for. She believed that the vast majority of people who had purchased their homes had not done so with a view to selling them on within two years to try to make a killing.
They would have made that investment for at least a five-year period with a view to seeing how changes in their personal and family lifestyles would dictate when they would sell and move on.
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Frances Fitzgerald, Fine Gael leader in the House, said it seemed the Government was threatening a whistle-blower with legal action for trying to raise environmental concerns about the site of the former steel plant in Haulbowline, Cork. Reports suggested action was being threatened against a consultant who was trying to alert the public about the threat posed at Haulbowline.
Acting Government leader Dan Boyle said Ms Fitzgerald had raised a newspaper report about Haulbowline island, the consultant to the sub-contractor involved and the threat made by the Government relating to court cases being taken.
It was his understanding that the Department of the Environment had stated that in relation to the contractual dispute, it did not want information given to the sub-contractor in the course of undertaking the contract to be made public.
The Minister for the Environment had already made information public in the form of the 2005 report and he had given an undertaking that all information on the site would be made available. This included information in the possession of previous governments dating from 1995 and 2002. In the light of this he wondered why problems had not been identified earlier.
Ms Fitzgerald asked if the departmental officials would still pursue the contractor. She said Mr Boyle was saying that the Minister was doing one thing and his officials were doing something else.
Mr Boyle said the issue of information was not a matter of contention. The matter concerning the contractor was separate. There was correspondence from the Chief State Solicitor about those who were asked to stop work and refused to do so. It was felt that the work they were doing was causing an environmental hazard. That was the nature of the dispute.