Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and thank them for giving of their time to discuss this important issue. To refer to the last item first, have the witnesses identified the true building cost of a house at €100 per square foot? I have information to the effect that it could cost considerably less than that. That would mean building by direct labour but it would be considerably less. There are some who say it is considerably more than that. Somewhere in between lies the answer but I do not know what it is. How would the representatives respond to the notion that prevailed at one time, that the building costs were roughly one third for building inputs and materials, one third for labour and one third for profit? That was the old adage, so perhaps they would comment on that.

The witnesses correctly identified an issue that affects younger people, generally under 35 years of age. They and their families are the most seriously affected by the lack of available housing. Might any consideration be given to the Housing Finance Agency loan scheme that existed in the 1980s, whereby three, four or five times the income was given by way of a loan? It worked extremely well but the applicants had to qualify on the basis of their income. They were on the local authority list, so it was catering for that side of the market.

The last point I wish to make is one I have made previously and it arose in the witnesses' submission. I do not favour over-reliance on voluntary housing bodies. I believe they are the cause of the problem. Reliance on housing bodies removed from the local authorities the responsibility for providing housing for a large segment of the population. That included not only people on the council housing list but also people who qualified for local authority loans in the past. All of that has been sidelined in recent times. It is virtually impossible now to get a local authority loan and approximately ten different agencies must adjudicate. I do not know why that should be the case. The witnesses might have thoughts on how to replace that system, which was available during the 1980s when there was relatively little money around as well. Houses were provided for people on the basis of their ability to pay. The monthly repayments might have been a small amount but that market was catered for.