Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have a housing crisis. The real issue is that houses are not being built. Planning permissions are not being applied for because minimum densities are being imputed. With a minimum density of 35 dwellings her hectare, we are getting terraced houses and apartments. Apartments are expensive to build. I am not talking about Dublin or city-oriented policy, which really only means Dublin. I am talking about rural and regional towns where such projects do not fit. Developers are not applying, which is leading to a housing shortage. They cannot afford to build apartments for less than the open market price. Clearly, they will not build apartments if they cannot sell them, meaning we will just be providing social housing rather than affordable housing. The densities should be imputed by local councillors at their own discretion based on their local knowledge. SPPRs are included in certain legislation, but they do not stipulate minimum densities. The Planning Regulator, purportedly the overseer of his own policy, says that there are minimum densities, yet no one from his office to the chair of An Bord Pleanála to the Minister has been able to show me where it is in legislation. This issue is causing untold hardship and the housing crisis.