Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am. The ECB rate increase has had an impact on the cost of development finance, not only the increased cost of construction materials and labour. Looking back to 2022, what concerned us at the time was that we needed to get more commencements going to feed into the pipeline for this year and indeed next. The mechanism that we used provides between €13,000 and €20,000 of a saving per unit depending on the type of unit. It is not just for apartments but for houses and one-off homes too, because we wanted to make sure that those who were fortunate enough to be able to acquire a site but who are building their own home also benefited from this development levy waiver. I have had the pleasure of visiting many of those sites that would not have been built without this cost-reduction measure. It is time-bound and we reviewed it in April this year.

As the Senator knows, with her support and that of Government parties we extended the timeframe for the development levy waiver to the end of this year and the timeframe for the Uisce Éireann connection charge refund to 1 October. We have also extended the date for completion to 31 December 2026.

The response from the development sector has been extremely positive. However, it is not just about building homes; it is also a matter of people being able to buy them. Consider the effect of our having introduced the measure. There have been 53,000 housing commencements in the past 12 months, which is an incredible number.

The measure also benefits the delivery of homes through approved housing bodies. Particularly with the Uisce Éireann connection charge refund, there is a saving. We all hope and expect to see reductions in costs associated with development finance. We will keep that under review because it is a genuine issue. With many of the projects being built, we see double-digit interest rate costs on development finance, which has a real effect. As the Senator knows, the Government can do only so much. We are investing €5.1 billion, but to deliver the homes we need even for this year we need between €13 billion and €14 billion. The remaining money comes from private finance. Private finance is required but the measure certainly has worked.