Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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An Teachta Doherty has outlined a lot of this already. One area where the mind boggles is that it is effective immediately, although the reality is that many of these will already have been built. When the Minister says this has something to do with the impact on the supply of housing through the supply of apartment blocks, it does not make sense to me. It seems this policy has a significant lag, realistically, and will have no impact in the immediate term on the supply of housing. An Teachta Doherty has outlined this already. For me, a question is why this was implemented straightaway rather than being delayed until it would actually be effective. If the Minister believes this will be effective, we can argue the point on that. However, if he believes this is something that will have an impact on the delivery of apartment blocks, why would he do that now?

What frustrates me even more is the fact that in recent months, the Government cut the design standards for new apartments and now its flagship housing policy is to focus on cutting VAT on apartments. I have raised this a number of times at this committee. As somebody who comes from the west of Ireland - I am from Galway city - I want to know what is the analysis regarding these apartments. Let us say we are all wrong and the Minister is correct, and what he is saying is absolutely right. If so, what kind of impact is this going to have outside Dublin, realistically? Of course, while it is important to tackle the housing crisis in Dublin, unfortunately, on the Government’s watch, there is a housing crisis in Galway city, in cities across the State and in the most rural areas, including our offshore islands.

I am not really sure how this will have any impact in those areas either.