Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The quarterly report speaks of increasing housing supply and 23 major urban housing development sites with capacity to deliver 30,000 new homes in the medium term in the greater

Dublin area, Cork, Limerick and Galway being identified by the Department, in close collaboration with local authorities, in terms of the Department's new housing delivery objectives. Ar an gcéad dul síos, I compliment the Minister, and his Minister of State, and wish him well, but he has to do better than the last man. What about County Tipperary? Do we have any crisis in County Tipperary? We have. More than 3,100 people have been approved for housing, never mind the 10,000 or 12,000 applicants. The report also mentions that there was keen interest in local infrastructure housing activity funding with applications from 21 local authorities covering 74 separate infrastructure projects. The problem is that expressing interest is all they seem to be doing. What is actually being done by the local authorities? It is just not acceptable. Nothing is happening. I also see that the report acknowledges that the assessment and approval decisions have taken a little longer than anticipated. Given the scale and complexity of some of the proposals, this is extremely frustrating. What has gone wrong in the system?

For decades, when we had nothing, local authorities were able to build houses and provide social housing. We had no equipment or cranes like we have now and none of the modern technology but now they cannot build anything. Is it all too complex? It requires endless consultations, reports and reviews. A report goes up to the Department, we wait six months, and it goes back down to the council, and then it goes back up six months later. It is a game that is being played and it is not delivering houses. Those involved should be ashamed of themselves. Local authorities, nationwide, including Tipperary County Council, have completely lost their way in terms of the provision of social and affordable housing and the Government should come out, put its hands up and accept that. The Government and the State have lost their way completely. I take responsibility as a Member of this Dáil, but it is just not good enough. The Minister can laugh all he likes but I do not know what is so funny. It is not funny for those who are waiting on houses and are sleeping on the streets. The ineptitude is frightening.

Deputy Wallace referred to it not being profitable. We cannot expect smaller builders, in particular, to build at a loss. Deputy Michael Noonan is no longer Minister for Finance but the new Minister for Finance, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, could make a decision in the morning to reduce the VAT. We brought that up in the talks on forming a Government. There had to be two rates of VAT and this, that and the other. Do something that will stimulate the industry in the upcoming budget. I beg it of the Minister. It is that simple. Then talk to the county councils and tell them to cut down their development charges. Development charges, VAT and tax make up 50% of the cost of the houses. It is not rocket science. Any second class national school student would know that this is a huge blockage. We have a huge problem staring at us and we are talking around it. We are holding conferences and delivering quarterly reports but it is all poppycock and pie in the sky. Get out and get the houses built. The capacity is there and they should be built. Cut out half the red tape.

The voluntary sector was mentioned by many people. I am a big supporter of it. It can do it too but it was too successful and the mandarins in the Department did not like it. We had one office - a one stop shop - but now we have seven different official areas to go through and we have to go to buildings in different parts of the country. It is a game that is being played by the Civil Service and it is exposed now in all its nakedness. It is time that they got off their backsides. Otherwise they should get out of the job and let someone in who can do it do it. I am sick and tired of saying it, and I do not say it lightly, but we have lost our way completely.

I am 58 years of age. I remember as a young fellow houses being built. They had only picks and shovels and the councils could build them. We did not build a house in County Tipperary last year. We are codding the people and everyone else as well. We are spending money on reports, commissions and this, that and the other and leaving it all to NAMA. Deputy Wallace quoted figures on what NAMA is charging for the houses. It is a State-owned, rotting, stinking cesspit which did not provide either and when it did provide houses, Tipperary County Council refused them. I questioned it back and forth for nearly two months to know what was wrong but all I got were long replies and no answers.

It probably cost the former Minister, Deputy Coveney, his leadership ambitions because it was another failure. He worked very hard but all the others would just talk and talk and talk, at meetings and to the housing committee, until they were blue in the face, while doing absolutely nothing.

We will have to scratch our heads and ask if we are really representing the people or just an abject failure in this matter. Are we going to allow the mandarins and all the bodies and agencies to do this? At the housing committee yesterday, the Construction Industry Federation decided it would put an emphasis on people building their own houses and would get the job of overseeing it all, without even a procurement tender. There are cosy cartels in all this that need to be shattered.

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