Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I withdraw that; I am sorry. I get emotional about this sort of thing. Owing to poorly thought-out legislation, which probably came from the tent in Galway and which was probably brought forward by developers, we now have to start removing legislative provisions. I very much welcome this Bill. We need to go further but it is a first step along the way. From a Government perspective, how much influence can we have on the housing market? There are three parts in respect of which we have an input. The first concerns development levies, the second concerns Part V, which represents a cost on housing, and the third part is VAT. We cannot deal with VAT here because that is a role for the Minister for Finance. I have spoken to him about reducing VAT from 13.5% to 9% to help kick-start the house-building industry.

However, I very much welcome the changes to development levies. There are a couple of points I would like to raise on development levies. They vary across the country. My county, County Kildare, has high development levies. The onus will be on councillors to review this and determine what they can do with regard to the changes being made in this legislation, but there needs to be some consistency. The people in Athy who are seeking to build a house, or a one-off house, are at a considerable disadvantage by comparison with the people in Laois and Offaly just across the border because there is such a variation in the development levies. Perhaps we might consider allowing authorities, within their own county boundaries, to vary their development levies. Why should the development levies in Leixlip and Celbridge in my county be on par with those from less developed places such as Athy and Castledermot, where there is also a need for housing? We must consider giving local authorities the power to vary the development levies they charge within the county boundaries.

The second measure I would like to see is not in the legislation. We are seeking it at present and it is in the depths of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. By way of a knee-jerk reaction, a circular was sent to local authorities preventing them from spending any more than they could collect in development levies in the year in question. In County Kildare, the local authority has a pot of money it cannot touch because of this circular. I have written to the Minister, Deputy Kelly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey, seeking the withdrawal of the circular to allow local authorities to spend money on capital projects on which development levies are most likely to be imposed. One should consider, in particular, a project such as the playground in Sallins. A proportion of the development levies was supposed to be allocated for it but, because of the circular, this cannot be done.

I hope the Minister will retract this circular and allow local authorities to spend the money they have previously collected in development levies.

Part V has been a bugbear of mine since 2000. I was the only county councillor in Kildare to vote against it. My colleagues, Deputies Emmet Stagg and Catherine Murphy, supported the imposition of the 20% social and affordable housing requirement. I knew what the consequences of it would be and I have been speaking about how we handed over the development of social housing over to developers. I am concerned about parts of section 33 and possibly section 36 which may allow a developer to either lease or swap houses in another area. I would be concerned that if a number of developers get together, buy a plot and get planning permission as a group, we could end up creating ghettoes that are away from where it was intended to put the social housing. I hope the Minister will look at that.

We have not gone far enough in respect of the target of 10% for social housing. Under a scheme in Kildare in 1999, developers or landowners who wanted their land to be changed from agricultural to development land had to pay a 20% land levy. That land could be used for other things needed to develop communities such as school sites, recreational facilities, amenity land and even land that could be used for industrial land. It was within the remit of the council to decide what was important within that community. We changed all that to make sure we built more houses without building communities, which is why I have been fighting hard against that. I want to allow local authorities to decide for themselves rather than shackling them and forcing them to take houses rather than land. Some local authorities need land for amenities, recreational facilities and schools.

I am disappointed the affordable housing scheme is gone. I know the option is there to take it, change it and re-introduce it. People will probably not be able to afford to buy houses on the east coast and in the vicinity of Dublin. House prices are rising much more rapidly than wages. We need to create a scheme whereby people can afford to buy their houses and we should have kept the affordable housing scheme in some form in this legislation.

I welcome the allocation of €86 million to Kildare County Council for social housing. It is a vast improvement. The council needs to step up to the mark. The fact that it has very few housing schemes that are ready to roll at the moment is a slight indictment of it because it neglected its architects' department and neglected to realise that houses would be built at some time in the future, that it would be building houses in the future and that it should have put the Part 8 arrangements in place so that when this was ready to roll, it could start building instead of having to begin the process. Perhaps that type of circular could be issued instructing local authorities around the country to get off their rear ends and put plans in place over the next five or six years so they have something that is ready to roll every year because money will be available over the next period of time to build social housing. I welcome the allocation of €86 million from that perspective.

I am very supportive of the legislation. I would like to see little tweaks to it. It is the first step in a series of legislation but we need to move quickly. There are people in all our communities who do not have housing or who are struggling in very low quality accommodation and we must cater for them because if we are going to have some form of equal society, we must look at all sectors who need some form of housing and shelter because it is one of the basic instruments that allows people to have a decent life.

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