Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As Deputy Wallace said, we must look forward. That is the purpose of this committee. We are in crisis mode and the objective of this committee is to look at solutions and to see how we can move on from here.

My question relates to the delivery of 20,000 residential units by the end of 2020 subject to commercial viability. My problem is that 93% of the residential units will be delivered in the greater Dublin area and only 7% will be located outside the greater Dublin area. Of the 20,000 houses subject to commercial viability, 1,400 will be delivered outside the greater Dublin area with 18,600 delivered within the greater Dublin area despite the fact that, for example, Waterford has 3,000 people and Cork has 7,000 people on their housing lists. This is not correct. The majority of the problem is in the greater Dublin area, but Cork is second and then there are the other cities, such as Kilkenny, Limerick and Galway. This aspect should be reviewed.

Returning to the cost of building a house on which we seem rightly to be spending a lot of time, in the breakdown provided for VAT on a house, excluding the land, the figure given was €30,500. Is there merit in reducing the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% or even lower to reduce the cost of building a home, especially in the case of first-time buyers trying to get onto the property ladder? I had other questions but they have been asked and I wish to keep my contribution as brief as possible.