Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As a regulation. I would ask the Minister to consider the following: the existing minimum standards do not guarantee affordability, as we see in all the other local authorities. Where there are cost implications to increasing standards at regulatory level, for example in a city or county development plan, there are other ways of addressing those implications. The Minister's Department and the Housing Agency are currently conducting studies of the cost of construction. We support that work and are looking forward to seeing the result of the research. The mistake Deputy Alan Kelly made was that the intervention was solely about preventing that increase in standards across the board at Dublin City Council, rather than looking at other ways of addressing the affordability issue.

All I am asking the Minister to do is to take this under consideration when he is addressing these issues in the future. Minimum standards should not also be maximum standards. The democratic process in the local authorities should allow them to go beyond the minimum standard if they think it is sensible. I am not aware of any elected member or official of Dublin City Council who thought that element of the city development plan was about pricing families out. It was about giving families better quality apartments to live in. We need to tackle affordability issues in other ways.