Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

Deputy Fiona O'Malley, before she left the Chamber, urged the House to consider the dilemma facing young couples. This is a problem she should face too because her party is in Government. It should certainly realise the dilemma facing young couples. The reality of this was brought home to me when a young couple with three children came into my office recently. They have been seven years on the local authority waiting list in Galway city and are still unable to get a house. They pay €200 a week for modest rented accommodation and because the husband works, they do not qualify for rent supplement. Despite this, the local authority is still unable to house people who find themselves in that dilemma. The housing officer said that there were people with four children and more who were on the waiting list longer and would have to be housed before them.

On researching the situation, I found that more than 100,000 people are on local authority waiting lists. The Government does little to alleviate the situation and, if anything, its policies make matters much worse. It has abolished the first-time buyer's grant, increased VAT by 1% on housing building materials and imposed development charges, which alone added €15,000 to the price of a house. The average price of a house in Ireland is now €255,776, an increase of around €18,000 in one year. The Government bears the main responsibility for this. Since this Government came to office, the average house price has increased by approximately €160,000. It has more than doubled in the lifetime of the current Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats coalition. Some 5,500 people in Ireland are homeless.

In the recent budget an attempt was made to alter stamp duty for first-time buyers, but it was not enough to take them out of the tax net. Fine Gael, in the next Government, will abolish stamp duty on second-hand houses up to a value of €400,000. The Government has taxed housing out of the reach of first-time buyers and young couples. Between development levies and taxes, a major proportion of the price paid for a house is directly taken by the Government. The Construction Industry Federation has published figures which show that the Government takes more than €100,000 out of the housebuyer's pocket with every house purchased.

This week in the Dáil, the Government voted to pass the Second Stage of the Disability Bill 2004 against the express wishes of all groups representing people with disabilities as well as the wishes of Fine Gael and other Members of the Opposition. In a typical arrogant manner it ignored the strong lobby against this Bill in its present form. A similar Bill was withdrawn under pressure before the previous general election on the promise that it would deliver rights-based legislation. The Government has once again deceived and let down people with disabilities.

I want to refer to the attitude of councils towards applications for the disabled person's grant and others and the red tape and delays involved. Some 90% grant aid is available for the disabled person's grant, but only 60% of that is refundable from the Government. In many cases that I have witnessed, because of the red tape, an invalid person who required a downstairs bedroom or bathroom and shower in a two-storey house died before the work was completed. That is scandalous and the Government has allowed it to continue.

This week the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, relaxed, as he termed it, the regulations for one-off housing in rural areas. This is a sham. The senior planning officer in County Galway told me it would make not one iota of difference.

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