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

It would help us, because many people are coming to us at the moment. We were talking about it with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, in the Dáil last week. He said that never had as many applications gone through planning as have done so in the past 12 months. He is actually right but not even a quarter of them will be built. That is my worry as so many planning applications are going through. Much of the surge in planning was from the change in the planning laws. Everybody was looking for planning, no matter where they were. They were trying to get it back in.

The issue of rising of buildings arose in a discussion I had on site this morning. I had it with a quantity surveyor this morning. There is the matter of rising of buildings to a third storey. People imagine that when a first storey and second storey are done, the third storey will be much cheaper to put on. The only basic costs that you are actually saving in this situation is on the foundation. Everything else has to be covered, such as fire regulations, concrete floors and it depends on what you are going on. The higher you go, the more expensive it gets. The lower you are, the cheaper the build. Once you pass the second storey you are into a different world. Again, the more we can do to help people to finance that side of it, the better. Many buildings could be built if the proper financial packages and if the right agencies were put in place. I want a situation whereby if a local authority states it does not want a particular building and if a certain agency is looking for it, it will feed back into the housing people. If Ms Donaghy can give me the information, I will go back out and encourage the people.