Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank both the AILG and the LAMA for coming before us today and for their fantastic submissions. Both were very insightful and provide a great perspective on the challenges we face. I agree with everybody that we need a collaborative approach. Many ideas have been mentioned and many suggestions made. The witnesses have highlighted many fears and concerns and we need to take those on board. I am from County Longford, where the only houses built over the last ten years have been social housing. We have seen no commercial housebuilding and that is all down to good county councillors and a very strong local authority management team. They have collectively driven that activity. Year after year, they have excelled and have exceeded the targets they have been given by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Particularly when one hears of the 30,000 social housing units across 2,000 projects, one cannot overstate the scale of the work under way across our local authority network.

I have just one query. I am not sure which representative could answer it. I would hope it will be one from a more rural area. The query relates to the caps included in the affordable housing Bill, particularly the cap of €225,000 which applies in smaller more rural counties. There has not been a three-bedroom semi-detached house built in Longford in the last 11 years. Such houses are the cornerstone of the affordable housing market. We see this as an opportunity to finally kick-start a viable housebuilding market in Longford again. What feedback have the associations had from their members and from local authority management with regard to the specific cap that applies in those rural counties?