Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses and apologise for missing their introduction because I was on the road on my way up. I am delighted to be here.

What difference can we make to help the construction sector? We have talked about the cost of building houses. I will use one simple example. In 2020, a 2,000 sq. ft house cost €240,000 plus VAT which came to €272,400, and the Government had €32,400 in VAT on that outside income tax or any other tax on it. To build the same 2,000 sq. ft house today costs €480,600 and the Government gets €48,000 VAT at 13.5%, which gives the Government an increase of €16,000 in VAT on the labour alone.

The transport costs relating to house construction were only 1.5% to 2% and are now between 6% and 7% and the Government takes €57 on every €100 in tax. We are talking about the increase in costs. Builders then need to get materials from the ports to the construction sites and get the tradespeople from their homes to a site. They cannot travel on a bus because they are tradespeople with tools. We have been talking around the shop about construction costs when our own Government is taking the most money in carbon taxes, VAT and income tax.

Let us be real here. If we factored all that into it, by how much would the cost of a house reduce? There are people in this room who voted for the carbon tax at a time when we could have delayed it in order to help our housing industry to build houses. Instead, we have come up with a proposal to give developers €144,000 per apartment to build apartments when people who want to spend their own money building on their own land cannot build because of Government decisions. This is why I call certain things hypocritical. We can have all the meetings we like. I have been in construction all my life and I understand it. Every week I get letters from suppliers informing me that costs are rising.

The witnesses are right about the planning process. If there is an objection, it is slowed down on the An Bord Pleanála side. If someone wants to build a one-off house in a rural area to take people off the housing waiting list, they are being charged €6,000 or €7,000 to be allowed to open the ditch on their site. On top of all the excessive taxes, they have to pay all the material costs that are being front-loaded by carbon and other taxes. At a time of need, we are increasing taxes. Our Government is tax-rich and everyone else is made to pay. For eight years, six years as a councillor and two years as a Deputy, I have been asking for the introduction of the apprenticeship model for early school leavers. I saw it eight years ago because I am involved in construction on the ground and can see it.

I am sympathetic to everything the witnesses are trying to do but unless we get a target on all the carbon and other taxes we are paying on building houses at the moment, the only people who will end up paying for this are the people who can afford it. We will have many more people on the housing lists who cannot afford it because of the rising costs of everyday living. That is where we have a problem. We can talk about this all day long and we can come back to it. It comes back to the fact that our own Government is standing in the way of people building houses. If we want to help, we should look at this sector which can help all other sectors across the board to build houses - get them to work make them affordable.

When it comes to a vote in the Dáil Chamber, people do not look at this. Are they in business? I could afford to take on ten more people tomorrow morning to do work but I am not doing it. I have not priced a house in two years because it is not viable. It is not viable for me to pay the people who are depending on me. I depend on them for my livelihood. That is what it comes down to.

Limerick City and County Council is only considering zoning lands within 15 minutes of Limerick city, which takes out over two thirds of my county. There is no infrastructure so people cannot build houses in the towns and villages because sewers are at capacity. There is inadequate water supply. The biggest polluter in County Limerick is the local authority. We serve notices on people every day fining them because of infrastructure. We need to start here.

I accept that we all have our own climate agendas. We all want a better world but we have a responsibility to house people affordably and put in something in the short term to help us. We account for 0.1% of global emissions problems. What are we doing? We have the highest taxation in Europe and our Government is the richest in Europe with the amount of taxes it is taking in. The people who suffer most are the people without adequate transport. They would use it if it were there. There is a failure of infrastructure throughout the country. The only answer to this is the Government. Its only way out of it is to increase taxes. In the existence of the country, it has never been richer than it is today. Let us all come together and put roofs over people's heads. We need to start with the Government.