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

I have been a building contractor all of my life and I have always been in the buildings, which has given me the life I have had, working with others to build homes for people for the future. When I was in the county council I saw first-hand how the Government put in regulation after regulation to stop people building houses in rural areas. The charge for any house built in rural areas outside the towns and villages is worked out by square foot. Down at the bottom of that price is stated what one is paying for, including the local library, the footpaths, roads and lighting, none of which apply to a person living in a rural area. That is still included to show what is being paid for. The minimum cost for building a house in a rural area in planning permission fees is about €5,000 for an average-sized house. That money is going to the Government for footpaths, lights and libraries. The Government has closed down all those amenities and taken them away from us but it is charging us for them in local authority fees. How laughable is that? The Government is talking about building houses. These are the people who are not putting their names on the housing lists; these are people who want to build their own houses, put in septic tanks on their land and build with their own money that they will borrow up to the hilt for. All the Government can do is put figures in front of them to prevent them from building houses for themselves. These are the houses the Government cannot supply. What does the Government do? It taxes us out of existence and finds another way to put another charge on the people of this country and it gives us nothing in return.

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