Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I listened to what the Minister of State said. In some ways, he is suggesting we should not press this amendment because we should take people on trust. I have found over the years that if something is not stated in legislation, it can be ignored, although perhaps not initially. We are asking that the Bill would specifically state that lower interest rates and longer maturities can be taken into account. It is not prescriptive, but it is something that should be provided, given the difficulties builders have stated they have had in accessing finance to build some of the many schemes we have seen, both private and public, but in the main, some of the private ones. The excuse they have given me in my constituency is that they cannot access funding. They say they have the planning permission and so on. I do not know whether that is the real reason. I doubt it in some cases because I believe what they are doing is flipping the land, once they get planning permission, to increase the value of the land and sell it on or hold it for a period while the values increase. They cannot be hit by the vacant site tax because they are actively pursuing issues or the planning permission is live on it.

There are companies that do not have creditworthiness and should never have been given social housing contracts or any contracts. There are others in difficulties. If this measure had been available for those companies, they might have been able to get longer maturities loans, which are now being called and is causing them difficulties. There is a company in receivership in my area. I do not know the exact financial reasons it is in receivership but it has caused mayhem in terms of the social housing projects and some private projects that company has undertaken. It has a primary healthcare unit but also two major social housing projects, one in Dolphin Park and the other in Cherry Orchard, which are now in difficulty. They will come out the other end of that, but if the finances were available at a different level, that company or other companies might have been able to bid for the tenders for those projects. There is a logic to inserting these words in the Bill to make sure longer maturities in particular and the lower interest rates can be taken into account.

See this speech in context