Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister can say he is conscious of the deadweight - the €100 million that has gone to people who do not need this support to purchase their own homes - but he has done nothing about it. This is the Finance Bill and he has done nothing about it. Mazars made it clear that this is poorly designed in respect of affordability, house prices and its objectives, yet the Minister comes forward with a Bill to extend it.

He said the Government's objective is to reduce house prices. By God, it has fairly failed on that one. Can he cite one year during his tenure as Minister for Finance when prices went down? Can he cite any one year from 2016 onwards when prices went down? On his watch, prices have gone up and up. What he plans to do in this Bill is to push them up further. Is that not right? He will push them up because he is going to introduce a concrete levy, which, according to his own officials and the SEAI, will add at least €1,200 to the cost of a three-bed semi-detached house. At a time when everybody knows, or should know, that we need to drive down the cost of housing, the bright sparks in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have said: "You know what we'll do? We'll introduce a measure that will actually put up the price of housing." I put it to the Minister that the Bill will increase the price of housing. There is no way to hide from that one either. It is as simple as that. The figure will be at least €1,200. Others have said it will be far more because it has not factored in inflation before the end of the year and other factors.

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