Mr. Padraig McNally:

Deputy Bannon rightly said that everybody wants houses, not cash, because there are too many temptations for local authorities to siphon off money to do other things, given the demands are so great in other areas. Members themselves would be at fault in many cases for jumping on the bandwagon and taking money that was given in lieu of houses. Once a person gets a house, it is there forever unless the person decides to sell it.

Senator Brennan spoke about the priority of getting people on the housing ladder. I believe any legislation should always aim to make it easy for the first-time buyer or builder because a house for them is a necessity whereas it is a choice for people beyond that. Whether people get into a house that is affordable forms the rest of their lives, in particular their working lives, so I believe that is very important.

With regard to unauthorised developments, all local authorities are accused of allowing the big man get away with murder. The reality, in my experience, is that there are several reasons for this. In particular, the courts are too lenient. All that a person summoned to court has to do is put in a planning application and the judge will adjourn the case pending the outcome of that, and he will further adjourn it because of an An Bord Pleanála appeal. Then, when it goes beyond that and if the people are determined enough, the councils, because of their lack of funding, are afraid of their lives to incur big legal fees by losing the case. We have had a few cases of that.

Parking is a particularly interesting issue. Every estate built in the last 20 years is totally inadequate in terms of parking. I believe lowering the density is an area that could certainly be looked at as it would obviously have an effect. There are huge issues regarding access for fire vehicles and ambulances, and I have seen streets too narrow to allow these vehicles through. We must examine the design of parking outside front doors where, for example, a long narrow strip might accommodate three cars but the owners will not park in the space because they would have to move two cars to get to a third car. In many cases, people are parking on the street even though there is off-street parking. There has to be better design and I believe regulation is needed in this regard.

That is all I wanted to say although there are many other areas I could expand on, perhaps on a future occasion.