Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and his staff. Some of the questions I had intended raising were raised earlier and the Minister answered them but on the issue of procurement, I want to give the Minister an example of a case with which I am familiar, and I am not engaging in parish pump politics. I come from Portlaw, County Waterford, and when I was a member of the council last May we were shown plans to develop 12 houses in Portlaw. Coolfin Woods is the name of the area, where 24 houses are already located. We were shown the plans last May. The council already owns the land and this is another section that will go in behind it. There are no objections. The previous Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, sat in the meeting and said there was no issue around the funding. When I inquired about the matter again last week I was told it is going to tender in October. The money is available. The plans are drawn up. The council owns the land and there are no objections so why would this project at Coolfin Woods in Portlaw, County Waterford take that long to proceed? It is frustrating from the point of view that we have the highest number of people on the waiting lists in the county. Everything is in place to proceed, and it is an issue that must be seriously addressed.

I welcome the Minister's comment that he is engaging with the local authorities because the local authorities have a major role to play in this area.

I would like to hear the Minister's views on another issue that I have raised continually in the past two years. There is a major issue with overcrowding in local authority houses, and it is very difficult to get a transfer. In the past ten years, the local authorities stopped putting extensions onto houses where there is room to do that, except in cases where the medical circumstances required it. For example, I was dealing with a case of a woman and four children who were living in a two bedroom house, which she loved, for the past ten years. It was in very good condition. She did not want to move, but the council refused to add on another bedroom, which probably could be built for €25,000 or €30,000. That would mean this person would not be put onto a transfer list, which would make the waiting list even longer. That issue could be examined with a view to speeding up the process. I refer to the procurement aspect and the local authorities considering extending their current stock.

This committee has discussed the cost of a house on several occasions. The price of a house in the greater Dublin area is approximately €300,000; it is not quite that much in country areas. Either 36% or 38% of the cost of building a house goes back to the State.

Is there a way to reconsider this because 38% is a huge amount of money?

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, also has appeared before the committee when a possible reduction in the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% was discussed. While the Minister stated he was open to discussing it, his preference would be for it to be passed on to the actual buyer and not simply to the builder. I wish to make another point on which I also seek the Minister's thoughts and with which not everyone present may be in agreement. We definitely must encourage developers back into the market because local authorities cannot deal with it all. We need the developers to be back building again and it is important that this happens. I have two children in third level education and the final point I wish to make pertains to accommodation for third level students. While Deputy Cowen raised this point briefly earlier, this is another issue because many young professionals are taking up third level accommodation and it is proving to be a real challenge.