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

I thank Sinn Féin for allowing us this time to debate this very important motion. I have nothing personal to say to anyone, but there is a hames being made of the building of houses. The Government is paying a regulator to dezone land in Kerry. It is paying a regulator to block one-off houses for people who would build the houses themselves if they could get the planning permission. The Government is giving one developer in each settlement, town or village the monopoly to build houses. If there were a developer on a site on each side of a town, at least you would have competition, but what happens if you give that monopoly to one developer? Those developers have a monopoly and can charge what they like. There is no competition. Small traditional builders who always built a few houses and sold them on cannot build now because they cannot finance a scheme of ten or 12 houses. Banks will not put forward the finance. Since the abolition of stage payments, they cannot carry the full cost of the houses until they get paid. What happened - and I have seen this happening - when they finished the houses and sold them on? Money was held back by the purchasers and the developers found it very hard to get the last €15,000 or €20,000 from them. That is why the builders are not building.

Following the debacle we have gone through here day after day when we have raised the felling licences, the price of timber has gone up to an exorbitant amount and is not available. It takes six weeks to deliver the timber ordered for a house. They will not tell you the price, or they cannot do so until they bring it to you. Irish Water is charging €6,500 per house in a scheme. The price of insulation has gone up by 40%. The price of steel has doubled. There are other levies and regulations. If the Government is wondering why it is costing massive sums of money to build houses or why it is so hard to build them, those are some of the reasons. The Government would want to cop on and go down the country and look at what is going on there. The Government is talking about €450,000 for a house. That is not an affordable house.

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