Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the Bill that is before us today. However, in considering the provisions it contains, we have to look at the past. I spoke in the House last night about how, at the time of the financial crash in 2008, people went to the banks looking to negotiate. Many people were in trouble because of the inflation that led to the price of housing going through the roof. The banks would not deal with them, however, and they were just told that they had to keep paying. It was only when it got to the stage where people stopped paying that the banks listened to them.

I have been involved in construction since the late 1980s and am still involved in it. The inflation that is being brought into the housing market once again is making homes even more expensive and will add to people's difficulties. People may end up in trouble if they have to borrow more to get the same product. Over the past 12 months, the price of materials for housing has increased by 38%. The cost of insulation, timber, blocks, concrete and everything else has gone up, yet there is no functioning housing market. That is because there is no supply to meet the demand of people who need homes. Last night in the House, the Government voted against the motion introduced by the Rural Independent Group on Project Ireland 2040 that would have amended the plan to allow people to build houses in the rural areas, towns and villages in which they live. They can no longer do so because everything is being shoved into cities, where there is existing infrastructure.

In County Limerick, houses that were making €375,000 only six months ago have now soared in price to €450,000. This is because of supply and demand and, again, that situation will feed into the rate of insolvencies because people have to borrow more. A total of 34% of houses sold in Limerick in recent times were bought by people relocating from Dublin. People moving to Limerick from cities and towns elsewhere in the country can afford to pay higher prices than people living in Limerick. A three-bedroom or four-bedroom house in Dublin could sell for €700,000 to €800,000. People who sell their house for that price can come to Limerick and put people there out of the market.

We have seen people get into trouble with their mortgages through no fault of their own, perhaps because they lost their job. They tried to make deals with the banks, as I said, but they were not listened to. When they try to contact the banks, there is nobody to talk to or else they find themselves talking to someone in a different country. The banks took away the ability to make deals from local bank managers and staff and moved the whole process to a central telephone service. We need protections for people but we also need the capacity for people to make contact with banks and resolve their issues. There have been problems in that regard for the past ten years or more. Much of the fault lies with the unwillingness of the banks to negotiate with landowners and people who have got themselves into trouble. There is a minority of people who do not care about their debt, but it is a minority. There are an awful lot of people who wanted to sort out their issues but were not given the opportunity to do so.

There are many people in the country who are trying to get onto the first-time housing market but cannot do so because of inflation. The problem is not just the cost of housing and materials but also the price of labour. That has arisen because of the lack of investment in training apprentices. After 2008, the Government pushed everyone into higher level education, which led to a shortage of tradespeople and apprentices. We were told there were too many tradespeople but now we are ten years behind in training people to do the basic maintenance that is required in different areas. That is another factor that feeds into the overall problem. The tradespeople who are operating are charging a lot more than they might do if there was a balance between supply and demand. Again, this situation has happened because of a failure of Government.

We need to take a holistic approach to this issue. I was very disappointed that our motion on the 2040 plan was not even supported by rural Members of the parties in government. A failure to amend that plan will add to the problem of prices going up countrywide. I have to hand 25 pages detailing 63 cases in which people in rural areas of County Limerick have a problem with planning permission. Since I have been involved in politics and during all my time in construction, I have never had more than ten cases at a time where I am trying to help people with planning issues. My telephone is hopping with calls from people who know I have a construction background and do a lot of work on planning. They are scared for the future of their children and grandchildren because of the lack of vision by the Government and the lack of investment in rural areas that would enable us to balance supply and demand. The Government set up the Land Development Agency LDA, to invest in different areas but everything it is investing in is city-based.

We all want to help people to move forward and ensure they and the generation after them can continue to live in the areas in which they were born. This Bill will not help if we do not address the issues that are causing more inflation, leading to many more problems and putting families in trouble.

We will have to do our utmost to help. The Bill goes a long way towards helping but, as other speakers said, it is now a little too late. On one hand the Government is bringing in this Bill, which will help, and, on the other, it is actually creating a problem and lighting a fire that will spill out of control and that the Government will not be able to manage. While the Bill is welcome, the inflation the Government is causing under the 2040 plan will feed into this and cause more hardship, not only in the towns and the cities. The whole country will suffer because the Government's left hand does not know what its right hand is doing.

As I said, I support what the Bill does. It is a little too late but something that goes a little bit of the way will help. I hope the Government looks at the other side and understands that it has been the cause of an awful lot of the problems in this country because it does not know about supply and demand. Rural areas were able to do this themselves recently and now the Government is cutting off even that lifeline. The only way we will help this insolvency plan going forward and stop the price increases, which will stop people borrowing more money, is by investing in infrastructure and giving extra capacity to areas, towns and villages, which will drive down prices. Building more houses will bring down prices and people will not have to borrow as much. They can then live their lives and will not spend 40 years trying to pay off the mortgage on a house that should have taken only 20 years to pay off, as it did when I was growing up. I welcome the support the Bill will provide but, as I said, it is a little too late. I will, however, work with anything that is there to help.

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