Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their questions. In regard to the school programmes, the budget for school building increased by 25% this year and will be roughly the same next year. The schools programme has involved the overall construction activity during 2018 and 2019 of 139 projects ranging in value from €1 million to in excess of €20 million. There are also 327 projects with a project value of less than €1 million at construction during this time. The completion of 466 projects is expected to deliver more than 40,000 permanent additional and replacement school places and replace approximately 600 prefabs. Progress of projects in 2020 is expected to involve 60 new school building projects of a value in excess of €1 million going to construction next year and delivering 30,000 additional replacement school places next year. There will, therefore, be 60 new projects next year worth more than €1 million and many more worth less than €1 million, so the schools programme is powering ahead.

In regard to Pelletstown Educate Together national school, the new school is anticipated to be built and opened for occupation and use in September 2021. The school is currently in temporary accommodation in the former marketing suite. I have spoken to the developers and the owners of that site to ask them to allow Pelletstown Educate Together national school to stay there for another year because I know parents are concerned about the possibility that children might have to be bussed to Broombridge again, which they would not like, and I support them in that. I am awaiting a reply from the landowner but, ideally, we would like the school to be able to stay where it is until the new school is ready to be opened in September 2021.

In regard to the Edmund Rice school in Castleknock, the site was only acquired recently. There were delays in the transfer of the land, there are issues with road access and planning permission has yet to be sought and secured. Money is not a problem for that project - far from it - and the delays are for other reasons.

On rent controls, as I have said previously, rent pressure zones, RPZs, and rent controls work for the people to whom they apply - the hundred of thousands of people who are renting and who are staying in the house or apartment they are renting. They now have a guarantee that their rent increase each year will be somewhere between 0% and 4%. Where rent controls and rent freezes tend not to work is for properties that are new on the market to rent, mainly affecting people who have to rent for the first time, in particular young people and migrants coming into the country. That is why we always need to bear in mind the impact that rent freezes and rent controls have. They tend to work very well for people who are renting and who have a tenancy, but they tend not to work and can even disadvantage people seeking to rent for the first time. That is why we need to get that balance right.

On the comments made by the CEO of Dublin City Council, I point out what everybody in this House knows, namely, local authorities have many sources of income, such as Government grants, the local property tax, commercial rates, development levies, rents and other charges that they impose, so they have a lot of flexibility around the money they raise and the money they spend. The revaluation of Irish Water has had a negative impact on the Dublin local authorities and on Waterford, but the vast majority of local authorities in the country, perhaps 25 of them, have benefited from the revaluation. Revaluations happen all the time, and some people gain and some people lose out. However, local authorities have a responsibility to come in on budget. They make decisions and they have to prioritise. Just like anyone who does a budget, they have to decide how much they are going to spend and how they are going to raise money. That is what being in charge and being in government is all about.

Deputy Boyd Barrett is correct that the decision made by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council was to increase business rates and to cut the budget for parks and climate action. It is interesting to see that no sooner are Fianna Fáil and the Green Party back in power than they are doing exactly what they did when they were in government nationally, that is, raising taxes, harming business and not doing much for the environment - in fact, they are cutting funding for climate action and parks in Dun Laoghaire. In my view, that was the wrong decision. They could have made other decisions on revenue which they did not make.

In terms of building social housing, approximately 10,000 houses will be added to the social housing stock this year. A few years ago, we were criticised for leasing and buying a lot of those from private developers, and I understand the reasons for that criticism. The reason that happened was councils and affordable housing bodies just had not built up the capacity to build. That is now changing.

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