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

What is the CIF's view on the report at the weekend inThe Sunday Business Post that NAMA has allowed 80 major property developers to walk away from €1.5 billion of toxic debt? The write-off is equivalent to €19 million per developer. How does the CIF feel about this? Is that just? Has Mr. Parlon any views on it, given that ordinary mortgage holders are still being screwed to pay for inflated house prices and yet members of his organisation, although they may not all be members, are being allowed to walk away from their debts?

I want to deal with what Mr. Parlon raised in his submission. My substantive question is: how much profit is sufficient for a builder to build? For example, regarding this famous starter home for €300,000 - which does not seem much like a starter home if one considers the income one would need to buy it - how much profit would CIF members be happy with on such a house? The CEO of NAMA has said that it is profitable to build houses and that it is a question of how much profit people want to make. He suggested that builders are not happy with profits of €20,000 per house and they are waiting until the profits reach €50,000 or more.

The CIF representatives have come here today looking for a range of breaks and incentives. They want abolition of the Part V system and development levies and for ordinary people to pay more property tax. They also want the tax breaks that the Department of Finance found had benefited high-income earners in the main to be reintroduced. Those tax breaks also led to the construction of all those empty houses in Leitrim. Our guests want the introduction of a help-to-buy scheme, as exists in Britain, which has turned out to be a help-to-sell scheme. They want tax incentives for new buyers, many of whom are able to save in any event and are not really the focus of this committee. Given those two features, is it not fair to deduce that the developers - the CIF's members - are on strike and are holding the country to ransom until they get these concessions from Government? If that was a group of workers, its members would be slated every day in the media. Why are the developers and the construction industry allowed to hold off until it is profitable enough for them, and ask the Government to cave in and give a rake of concessions to get them to do what they are meant to be doing?