Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, representatives. We all - society, politicians and the CIF - have a great deal of ground to make up. It brings to mind two houses side by side in the recent election. One was bought for €750,000 while the next door neighbour in the exact same house paid half that. There has been huge speculation and indeed the good name of the builder is very difficult to stand over in many parts of the country because of the exploitation and the profiteering that took place. We all, including politicians and the industry, have to step up to the mark. I would have liked to see much more constructive suggestions from Mr. Parlon's organisation. I welcome the points he makes, and I am not being critical of those, but we would like to hear more from him about what more the CIF can do as an organisation to reduce costs and to make housing more affordable.

The CIF has a large number of properties in town centres, which are over shops and businesses and are unoccupied. It seems to me that it would be constructive to have a scheme whereby they could be made suitable for modern flats or residences for people with the family type that could live there - childless couples, single people, or whoever. There are also many infill sites in the ownership of local authorities. If the councils identify them, we ought to be able to reach a satisfactory solution whereby they could be offered as serviced sites to builders competitively to build on. That would get over many of the infrastructure costs Mr. Parlon was talking about.

Finally, I think it was the Affordable Homes Partnership which was looking some years ago at a place like Gormanstown army camp, which is more than 200 acres. One could take 60 acres of that land, which could be serviced by the State. We would have to get the vehicle which other members have spoken about - a special purpose vehicle, NAMA or whatever - so that we could offer sites serviced by the State in terms of special infrastructure funds or whatever. There would be two builders in a competitive, fixed-price environment. It would do away with the issues the CIF has as an organisation as regards the cost of infrastructure. The State has an obligation to support social and affordable housing. Is there a formula we could find, nationally or regionally - it would probably require a bigger organisation than a county council to get it right - so that we could immediately move on sites that are owned either by local authorities or by State or semi-State bodies that could be used immediately for housing? I would like to hear Mr. Parlon's views on that.