We believe there should be a balance and we believe home ownership matters. In many respects through Sinn Féin's schemes - given the cap of €80,000 on its shared equity scheme, for example - one could never own a house if they were a garda married to a nurse or whatever. That is a fact.

Sinn Féin would put a cap of €80,000 on it and get rid of the shared equity scheme and the first home scheme. That is the bottom line.

It is affordability.

The person will not have to pay €400,000, that is the point. It is already €100,000 below market value. When someone buys that house, they will have acquired a house for €100,000 below the market value. They will have availed of schemes that will increase their capacity to afford that house by about €130,000, if they go the full distance on the first home scheme and take the help to buy payment of €30,000. You did not mention once----

Through the Chair, you did not mention once the help to buy scheme. You opposed it from day one. That would benefit anybody buying an affordable house. You have never supported development in Oscar Traynor.

You are obfuscating and prevaricating. You will not accept the basic fact that the schemes the Government has brought in through the first home scheme and the help to buy scheme-----

-----significantly improve an individual's or a couple's capacity to make a house affordable, in this case from about €400,000 to €270,000 in terms of the amount that a person would have to pay out. That is significant. That covers right across the board.

Sinn Féin would get rid of those schemes if it went into government.

Any first-time buyer out there needs to be aware that Sinn Féin would undermine their capacity to buy houses into the future by getting rid of help to buy and getting rid of the first home scheme. You do not believe in home ownership.

Deputy Ó Broin does not believe in home ownership. Tell the truth. You do not believe in home ownership.

You are not.

Dereliction and vacancy is a key issue. However, I would argue that never has more funding been made available through a whole variety of schemes to try to end dereliction and get urban regeneration going. In the first instance we have the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF. A lot of that is yet to come through in terms of the schemes. Funding has been allocated, schemes have been announced, but through design and planning it is going to take quite some time before we will see that on our street landscap…

There are streets across the country which need that rebalancing in respect of the common good. Sometimes it can be through the delay in getting various projects through. Take Dublin and O'Connell Street. A major project there has been on the go for about 20 years in respect of retail and residential. What is the name of that company? I do not have its name now but it has gone through dozens of committees, met with a cross-party committee here-----

No, I am talking about the development itself - the bigger one. That has yet to go through planning but it has been on the agenda for about two decades. That is a problem that speaks more to the dereliction question. When a big project is mooted and is in the works, very little happens until it gets realised. I see that in parts of Cork at the moment as well in terms of people waiting for certain developments to take place before they will invest. That is one issue, but I have no difficulty with the fundamental pri…

First, I want to make it very clear that there is a fundamental difference between outsourcing and privatisation. Fianna Fáil, by the way, has a very strong record historically of building up State enterprises and did so through various decades-----

-----particularly during the Seán Lemass era. RTÉ is not for sale. I do not think there is any proposal to put RTÉ on the market-----

-----or on the stock exchange. That is privatisation - let us be clear. Deputy Boyd Barrett is like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. There is no privatisation. RTÉ is not going to be sold. It is not on the market.

The Minister and the Government have been clear that they do not want mandatory redundancies. RTÉ has committed to seeking voluntary redundancies. Public funding has increased and the Government will make a decision on the future funding of RTÉ, which has always been part RTÉ licence fee, part Exchequer funding and part commercial revenue. RTÉ has always taken in commercial revenues for many decades, and Deputy Boyd Barrett knows that. That has been a feature of the model. RTÉ now proposes in its latest strategy to…

Social media companies employ thousands of people in this country. The general taxation proposals of the Deputy's party would reduce foreign direct investment in this country to zero. If he got into a position to do so, he would tax the living daylights out of companies. That is his party's policy, which is fair enough. He is entitled to his ideological perspective.

I did not interrupt Deputy Boyd Barrett, to whom I am responding. He is the leader of his party this morning. Deputy Murphy might be leader next week but it is Deputy Boyd Barrett today. It is long-standing Government policy to support the independent sector. The Deputies opposite may be against that and against the idea of innovation but it has always been the case that we support the independent sector. I believe in having a strong public service broadcaster. I also believe in supporting public service broadcasti…