I ask the Tánaiste about the increase in house prices and collapse in homeownership levels. House prices have increased by 14% in the past year and homeownership levels have collapsed among people of prime working age. In the early 1990s, two thirds of people were homeowners by the age of 28. Now at that age, people are lucky to have managed to move from their parents' homes. Homeownership levels have collapsed since Fine Gael took office more than a decade ago and although the rate of house building is increasing, there are not more homes available for first-time buyers because new homes are going to investment funds and institutions that charge unaffordable rents. Does the Tánaiste agree the time for the favourable tax treatment of investment funds should be ended to give people who want to buy their own home a fair chance?

I thank the Deputy. We all know what happened here when we had a banking and financial crisis ten or 11 years ago. The banks, the construction industry and housing supply collapsed, and as a consequence of inadequate supply, houses prices started rising again and are now very high and out of reach for many people. It is a social disaster, quite frankly, that people in their 20s and 30s who would have been able to own a home 20, 30 or 40 years ago simply cannot now. One of the biggest challenges facing the Government is turning that around, increasing supply and putting in place schemes to enable people in their late 20s and 30s to be able to buy a home, just as they used to be able to do not that long ago. That is something we are working on very closely. Anything involving tax treatment is a budgetary matter and would be considered by the Minister for Finance.