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

I recently met the Minister of State in Kilmallock and welcomed him to County Limerick. In the region of 1,400 affordable houses will be delivered by the State this year. Some 1,000 of those will be in Dublin and 256 homes will be built in the other four cities. The delivery target for Limerick local authority is for 264 local authority houses to be built between now and 2026. A total of 53 of those were built this year in Limerick. I am working with a village in County Limerick which has planning for 70 houses some of which are pre-sold. What is the problem?

The problem is that I can deliver 70 houses in County Limerick but there is no water. They are waiting for another 12 months for water to come to Croom in County Limerick. I can deliver 70 houses. The local authority can deliver 56 houses. I am only talking about one town in County Limerick. This goes back to infrastructure which I have said to the Minister of State many times and to many Governments. What does infrastructure mean for County Limerick and all the other counties? It means we can get more houses built, be more sustainable, have businesses that are sustainable and have people return home to where their families are.

It has been the failure of this Government and previous Governments that there is no infrastructure in County Limerick and throughout Ireland. I would like the Minister of State's attention and ask that Deputy Bruton wait his turn. I ask people to look at County Limerick. People want to build houses. The local authority and the Government cannot supply them and people want to build houses on their own land. Planning permission is stopping them from building.

If they are allowed to build, they are charged per square foot for building a house on their own lands and supplying their own water and sewerage systems. Although they do not come from the Government the Government takes approximately €7,000 in fees from them for local footpaths and lighting of which there is none. These people are building in rural Ireland. They are not asking the State to build a house. They are saying they will build their own house. On top of that here is 23% VAT on inflated costs. That means that the Government's VAT intake on materials in houses in Ireland is up by 80%. There is 13.5% VAT on building costs as well. I apologise to the Minister of State with regard to the interruption.

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