Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. This is one aspect of Housing For All. The starting point is to acknowledge that we have a problem in that we are not seeing build-for-sale apartments being built. We are not seeing them in Dublin to any great extent and we are not really seeing them elsewhere throughout the country to any extent at all. In my city of Cork, the last private sector development where apartments were built for sale was finished back in 2008. Since then, the only apartments built in the city were those built by local authorities or approved housing bodies, supported by the State. We have a problem. If we want to implement our national planning framework, if we want compact development and if we want all of these exciting, brownfield regeneration sites to be developed in our cities, we are going to have to do something. This initiative is designed to ensure that apartments are built for sale for owner-occupiers and will make the development of such apartments viable where that would otherwise not be the case.

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