Mr. Tom Phillips:

Senator Boyhan asked about levies. We are not looking for a blanket omission of levies but equitable levies. There are 31 planning authorities and 31 different sets of levies. Sometimes, different sides of a road have different authorities for levies, such as at Walkinstown roundabout in Dublin. Those levies are passed on to the purchaser and the developer has to make a profit margin to get bank finance. He or she will not get 100% finance as they did in the past. Any levies that are applied by the local authority end up going onto the cost of a house and it is not just a matter of a €13,000 reduction. The levies are at 13.5% so a house costing €300,000 will have a VAT levy of nearly €40,000. All this money adds to the cost of housing.

We advocate a holistic approach and recommend looking at whether the approach is equitable among all the local authorities in terms of their quantum. In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, the levies for an apartment in Kilternan or Glenamuck were nearly €60,000. One has to buy the land, get finance from the bank and pay one's team of builders and then, on top of it all, pay €60,000 to the local authority per unit, which rendered projects non-viable.