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

If Deputy Michael Healy-Rae has an interest, then I have an interest too, since we are supposed to be brothers. I am very concerned about the housing situation and have become even more so as the days have gone on since the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, put his Bill, which I voted for, through the Dáil. I have serious concerns about this new programme because I think there is only one way to build houses or to get houses built. That is to give the money to the local authorities, buy the sites and build the houses, full stop. I do not think this thing of 20% or 10% will ever materialise. If a developer sells one side of his site for housing at €600,000, how will he get people to buy those houses if the local authorities can buy them for €250,000 or whatever? I cannot see that working. Rents have been and still are going up.

I am not taking the side of the landlords but it is affecting the renters. However, everyone including the Minister must recognise, I have said it in here several times previously, the State is getting 51% out of the rent. If the rent is €800 or €1,000, the landlord gets only half of that. With all this talk, with all the money the Government has for housing and all it wants to do about housing, surely the Government could reduce tax on the rent and that would help. It could then ensure that the landlords reduced the rent similarly to the people who are renting. Carbon tax and all the other taxes are putting people and parents under all kinds of punishment and under pressure. They are feeling every penny that they have to pay out. There is now a serious problem with planning permission in our county. Things have happened in recent days and planning permission has been refused. It looks to be the intention of the site suitability assessments to refuse every planning permission that will come in to the local authority. People have been on the waiting lists for ten to 12 years in Killarney. Rents are expensive there, as they are in Kenmare and Dingle.

As for the Bill brought in by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, I am grateful to him because I appreciate any man who tries anything. That is why I voted for the Bill. However, so much of what is in the Bill depends on private house builders and on bigger developers to build these houses. If the Government is serious about it, it must put money into it themselves. Before any block is put into the ground, VAT and levies are denying small builders, and even big builders, the opportunity to build houses.

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