Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to finish off as I do not want to leave out my party colleague, Deputy Brendan Ryan. If I did so, I would be in awful trouble. Also - not because he is my party colleague - he did make some good points.

At the end of all of this, there is an issue the committee should bear in mind. Earlier, I spoke about the various pieces of the jigsaw and the range of components. It is important if one can create a process whereby, whoever is in charge in the future, will ensure all the components are aligned and facing in the same direction. Within our domain, we have done our lever, for want of a better phrase.

The construction industry question relates to the land and costs issues which I spoke about earlier. The 38% of the cost of building a house going to the State is an issue on which this committee will have to make some recommendation.

The real issue with Part V was that in many cases money was taken instead of the 20% housing provision. I did not agree with that and stopped it. I also changed it so that now the developer has to hand over an actual house rather than a site. In an expanding economy and if conditions change, maybe that should change. This needed to be addressed to get building going, however.

There need to be future proposals for local authorities to be incentivised to provide land. However, the amount of land local authorities have is often underestimated. It is not a panacea as there are some local authorities which need to purchase land. An official is here with maps if members wish to check. They can also check them online on the Department’s website.

I began a process to subsidise an affordable housing package which was passed by the Cabinet before the general election. This needs to be expanded in the future and there is a fund towards it.

We made the change that a landlord now has to sign a declaration if he or she is selling a house. If it is found that he or she has not done so, the Private Residential Tenancies Board can effectively deal with that and the tenant can actually go back into the house. There is an issue with Article 43 of the Constitution.