Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We need a mix of everything to deal with the current housing situation. We can look at the situation in a year or 18 months. If something is not working then or some aspect has got out of hand, it will be easy to bring in legislation to deal with it. Regarding public private partnerships, I refer to a previous Government Minister in respect of when the health centres were done. It was the damnedest scheme I ever saw. The buildings were released from the person who built them for 25 years, after which it was necessary to re-lease them again. We must ensure now that what we are doing is nailed down pretty well in its specifics.

We need everybody working on this issue. The county councils must be doing a bit, even though they are struggling to get staff. We also need PPPs, which I do not have a problem with, as long as the prices are kept in line. The Land Development Agency will also need to be involved. It is going to be crucial for the simple reason that we must ensure that we keep a close watch on the price of land and be certain that the prices are not going out of control. We must ensure as well that two or three State bodies are not bidding against each other to acquire and assemble parcels of land. I am blue in the face talking about the other aspect we need to address. We need the requisite infrastructure, including water, sewage etc., in place before development commences. We must plan now for the situation we will have four or five years down the road and not for tomorrow or next week.

As Deputy Mattie McGrath pointed out, voluntary agencies and community groups have done a great deal of work down through the years in building chalets and on housing schemes to help people. They have worked. Many hands make light work, to be frank about this situation. We must get all sides active in addressing this issue. If a problem does arise at some stage, if the price of land were to get out of hand, for example, then it would be easy to bring in legislation to deal with that situation. The State has a choice in what and who it deals with if things were to get out of hand.

I ask the Minister to make sure of another aspect which involves PPPs. When we hear announcements regarding the development of 600 houses, for example, and so many of them being affordable and social, generally what distinguishes the companies undertaking such work is their ability to get the required finance. Most of the large building companies have a crane, possibly a mobile crane, and a teleporter, but all they have after that are fancy offices and people employed up at the top layer. Every one of those large companies are relying on subcontractors to do the work. They subcontract ground works, the block laying and every single piece of the work required as the project goes along. We must watch that we are not just sucked in by these companies. Such companies do not have much material or employees on hand. Their only advantage is that they have access to funding, generally from overseas, to enable them to undertake construction.

I ask the Minister to allow all the different sides to try to work on this problem. We must monitor the situation, however. It is simple to build a house. The problem is to get to that stage. What causes me to pull my hair out at times is to see the number of houses in Dublin at a standstill because of a hold-up in planning and then the slow pace of building. I state that because it is not complicated to build a house if it is possible to get on the ground and get at it. I also ask the Minister to look at these large conglomerates that are announcing 400, 500 or 600 houses, joint ventures and everything else in this regard. Other than access to finance, many subcontractors have much more gear than these large conglomerates. Those contractors, however, are not at that level and this is a serious problem.

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