Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the provision in the Bill that sorts out the situation whereby students were being asked for all kinds of bingo numbers for deposits. That is being outlawed in the Bill and it is the one good thing about it. I am worried that the rest of the measures are futile. I admire the Leas-Cheann Comhairle every time she speaks from her knowledge and experience. I agree with her that we get only futile efforts in this country that involve talk and more talk. I was on the housing committee for four and a half years and I became pure disillusioned with it. If talk could build houses, we would be building millions of them. Deputy O'Donoghue is speaking as a builder of some renown. He understands the industry.

I am not here to bash public servants but they are not fit for purpose in any Department. I spoke this morning about the situation with the maternity hospital, where the cost has gone up from €150 million to €800 million. The cost of the children's hospital has increased from €400 million to €2 billion and growing. We also have the broadband fiasco. It is one fiasco after another. Deputy O'Donoghue referred to problems with the importation of materials through the ports as a result of Brexit. I do not know whether the staff there are not working, are working from home or something else. I apologise for diverging a bit but I spoke to a fellow recently who bought a bailer. He got it into the country from Germany no problem. However, when he needed a mechanical part for it to allow him to continue his work in the hay season, it took six weeks to get it from England. The blackguarding of people that is going on is crazy.

Regarding housing, the cost of building has gone through the roof. Deputy O'Donoghue told me last night that to build a 2,500 sq. ft house now costs more than €400,000. We have had the Taoiseach, or it may have been the Tánaiste, saying that an affordable house in Dublin is one that costs €400,000. This is crazy stuff. How are we going to deal with the issues? Deputy Tóibín touched on one aspect. I have been like a broken record for years talking about using the spaces where shops have closed and the spaces above shops in our towns. This would do two things. It would create living towns and it would make an impact on the housing list. Instead, the Government is putting billions of euro into the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. That is dead money and it is going down a black hole. While people are getting roofs over their heads, it is not solving the situation. For God's sake, we built houses from the 1940s through to the 2000s but now we cannot build them because we are tying ourselves up in red tape.

The Minister of State, Senator Hackett, will not deal with the issues regarding tree felling licences for timber. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is adding cost increases to insulation. Every move the Government makes is about regulation. Deputy Verona Murphy is spot on that the new Office of the Planning Regulator is another quango. We have another jumped-up, powerful man who got into a powerful position and is destroying areas. In the town of Cathair Dhún Iascaigh on the River Suir, 50 ha of land around Cahir Castle were zoned. That was probably too much but the new plan that was done recently, which my daughter, Councillor Máirín McGrath, has railed against, will see 40 ha dezoned. Where are people going to go? I do not blame people for thinking there are conspiracies going on. We are being herded into the cities and it is all about control. Everything is about regulation and more regulation and it is adding costs, inefficiencies and bureaucracy. It is creating more problems with homelessness. We cannot get the figures for homeless people and homeless deaths or anything else.

Deputy Verona Murphy is right that directors of services in many councils are not up to the job because they do not understand planning law. If the Planning Regulator says "Jump", they go through the roof. This is nonsense. The democratic right of elected councils to draw up their county and town development plans is being diminished. Every legislative provision we bring in here diminishes the rights of the people and the rights of their duly elected representatives. It is diminishing progress in our country. We will be starved with the hunger in this country before we are finished. This week we banned fur farming and next week we will ban something else. It will be horse racing and sheep farming eventually. Where are we going in all of this? Who will take a rain check and say "Wake up and smell the coffee"? We are going down the Swannee very fast.

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