Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the three delegations and the opportunity to discuss this issue. I will start with Mr. Hubert Fitzpatrick's contribution in respect of putting timelines on local authorities. The rules of engagement prevent me from saying what I want to say but I am gobsmacked. There may be some local authorities where that is the case but my experience has been that his members, developers, have been chased by local authorities and public representatives for years to try to get them to finish off basic infrastructure within estates, such as footpaths, put in place manhole covers and fix sewerage that is not working. I can take him to some of these estates, including one which is very close to me that I have been chasing for the past 12 or 13 years. Others which have been successful took five, eight and ten years to complete. Bonds have been allowed to lapse by developers, by his members, yet the representative has come before the committee to say that timelines need to be put on local authorities. I do not necessarily have a problem with that but the timelines need to be put on developers. The country is full of estates which are a quarter and half finished; I can take the representative on a tour of them. The Construction Industry Federation has a duty to ensure its members are putting the infrastructure in place for the people who bought the houses for which they paid boom time prices and are living in shambolic conditions. That is the first point.

In regard to the federation's position on Part V, how will its proposed 1% levy help social integration? Deputy Robert Dowds referred to the example in part of Dublin where different types of houses were built in different areas, including Victorian type houses, resulting in social segregation. How does the federation intend to counter that Victorian type of housing practice?