Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this very important motion. The Ministers for Finance and Housing, Local Government and Heritage know as well as everyone else that these investment firms are bidding against young couples for single houses and blowing them out of the market. That is wrong. The Ministers are saying they are going to rectify it and I hope they do that because they must.

Young couples are facing many real obstacles to put a roof over their heads. First, there is the problem of getting planning permission and zoning. They go through hell and high water to get planning permission. The planning regulator is not being fair and is dezoning land. In one instance a few years ago, Mick O'Connell, the best footballer that ever graced the fields of this country, got Killorglin Town Council to vote to zone a bit of land for him for a small number of houses. The planning regulator did not even know where Valentia Island was but he insisted that Kerry County Council rescind that zoning and Mick O'Connell was stopped in his tracks.

There are other issues, for example, the increase in material costs, as well as levies and taxes. We have great local builders like Michael Jack Cronin, who has done great work in recent times. The Government must go back to the traditional way of house building, which was to give the local authorities funds to build houses. The Government is also blocking the tenant purchase scheme and stopping tenants from purchasing their houses, which they did traditionally over the years and there was nothing wrong with that. Any house built since 2015 is not allowed to be bought out. We should go back to that old system. The banks are messing people around.

See this speech in context