Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted Mr. Parlon started by saying the housing market is dysfunctional at this time. It is important the construction industry recognises that also. He said we need substantial investment in infrastructure and I would like him to provide some more detail on that.

I have a huge concern with regard to Part V contributions. I reiterate what Deputy Cowen said, namely, that 20% of houses built should be for social housing purposes.

We had a huge discussion at a previous sitting of the committee about the fact that we no longer wanted to build houses in totally social housing estates. We do not want to go down that road. The Minister has also announced the social housing 2020 strategy. Mr. Fitzpatrick has said that as long as the market value of existing or new homes is lower than the replacement cost, little or no private house building activity will take place. For example, in his submission, under the Housing Bill, he states one can buy a house in Hospital, County Limerick for €75,000 and estimates that the cost of building it is €185,000. There are a number of houses for sale in the area. As one can buy ten for the same price, why would one build them? We need to start a massive house purchase programme of the houses available and put people in them because people are homeless and there is a crisis. They have nowhere to go and we cannot wait two to three years for houses to be built. Is the Construction Industry Federation stating it cannot build them because the market price is too low? We require State intervention to buy these houses. I had a huge concern that the figure of 1% suggested in Part V would be used for housing infrastructure to be built, yet no social units would be delivered.