Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Obviously we are supporting the motion. Before he left the Chamber, the Minister said we have cut red tape where it is safe to do so in order to protect against a fall in standards. That is just ridiculous. We are effectively saying to Sligo County Council that it can give Marc MacSharry planning permission for 1,000 houses without needing to come near the Department, but Sligo County Council cannot build ten local authority houses without coming up here and going around the administrative merry-go-round for seven, eight or ten months or into years at times. When will we realise that we have to strip out all this unnecessary duplication? If they are capable of giving planning to me, they are capable of planning for themselves. Let us get building. That is what needs to happen. We are hearing about all these hare-brained schemes, this launch and that launch. We are not getting the supply for the demand that exists.

We should outlaw vulture funds and institutional investors purchasing entire schemes in the small amount of building that is going on. The Minister needs to do something about it because nobody can get near to that. Because rents are so high, those institutions are coming in and banking them knowing they will give them a good return. That should not be allowed. The vulture funds that came in under the tax incentives that were there for them are getting these rents tax free.

Deputy Penrose rightly mentioned the number of derelict properties throughout the country, particularly in rural areas. We should be incentivising by providing grant aid to get these up and running. By all means, as the Deputy said, this can be tied into renting to the local authority for a period of years in lieu of that. Certainly let us get them back in use.

Some years ago, probably towards the peak of the boom, I read about Ireland having enough retail space for 15 million people. That may well be the case in villages and towns that no longer support the old-fashioned retail units on their streets. If that is the case and retailing is not possible, we should incentivise those people. Let us get a mix of retail and people living on the streets in those villages and towns.

The motion refers to a housing development bank. The banks are telling us they are lending money at the moment. While they are lending, they are lending to only a handful of people in non-tertiary areas. Non-tertiary areas are effectively everywhere outside Dublin. They will not lend. We need an equivalent of the ACC or ICC, 20 good underwriters and get money out to small builders and large builders throughout the country so that they can get building.

As everybody has been advising, the Government needs to cut out this ridiculous duplicative process for local authorities building houses. They are capable of overseeing me as a private developer building; let them build themselves. The Government should give them the money to do some building and let us begin to eat into the current demand issues.

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