Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Consider the massaging the Government does on the numbers. The majority of the Part 5 developments were not even newly built. That is the truth. Acquisitions solve no problems. They are just eating into another aspect of the market. The next time the Minister of State gets a chance to address this, could he explain to me why State land is not used? If the local authorities are not fit to build or provide housing, why does the Government not create an entity to do so? It does not have to be a big quango. Somebody should be appointed who has the knowledge, experience and interest to use State land to provide social and affordable housing. They should be mixed. When I talk about affordable housing, I am talking about €200,000, not €350,000.

I have said before what I would do if I were given the gig of building 100,000 units in a specified period on State-owned land and if I were allowed to use builders rather than developers. A builder is actually very happy if he can make a profit of €10,000 per unit because he gets his wages out of his company anyway. A developer looks for between €60,000 and €80,000, and a builder has to make a profit on top of that. Going down the Land Development Agency route is just enriching men who have more money than sense already. For the love of God, why does the Government not use the State land to provide housing itself? It is not doing this.

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