Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The society is currently undertaking a house construction cost study, which is something that has obviously dogged everyone here. In the Irish Independenttoday, there is a report that the €300,000 starter house that everyone is talking about would actually cost €130,000. Mr. Parlon said in the previous session that it would be €150,000. It is just that. The committee needs to know what the component cost of a house is. What is the land cost, the profit cost, the labour cost, the finance cost and the development-levies cost? It needs to be broken down. Hopefully, the society's report will do that.

The other issue is the reduction in VAT which the society is calling for and which the CIF also called for. The problem if one cuts taxes to get builders to build is that there is a social cost to that. It is less money for local authorities, less money for the public service and less money for social housing. I am completely opposed to it based on the cuts which have already been made to development levies, which the society also agrees with cutting.

Streamlining the planning process is obviously something we need emergency legislation for to speed up building. However, if the witnesses mean, as they indicate, that local authorities should not be able to put in their own safeguards with regard to development, there have already been cuts introduce by the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, in the previous regime to reduce, for example, the size of apartments. It is very dangerous to do things like that because in a few years' time, people will not be able to live in these apartments when they have children. It seems to be an array of the kinds of incentives and tax cuts for builders and developers that the witnesses are backing up and which have not served the country well in the past. What the witnesses said seems to be very similar to what the CIF said earlier. There does not seem to be anything new in calling for more cuts for developers.