Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Most staff in local authorities are closer to the problems on the ground than we are and they are probably more susceptible to the pressures coming from those looking for housing. Therefore, the idea that local authorities would not want to build on land that they might have available for housing seems a strange one. I would have imagined that the only reason local authorities would not be building on land that they had would be that they cannot get the funding to do it. If a local authority had development land, the Minister made funding available to it to build housing and the local authority refused to do so, I would penalise the local authority. However, I do not know how one can penalise a local authority which has development land and would like to build housing on it, but the Minister will not give it the funding to do so. The local authority is dependent on central funding to do it. We probably have one of the worst structures of local government in Europe. A local authority here has access on average to one fifth of the funding available to a local authority in Europe. Our local authorities have been so watered down over the years that they are not really local authorities anymore, but merely administrators for central government. I do not see the logic of penalising the local authority for not building on land where the Minister will not give it the funding to do so.

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