Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and the Ministers present. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing it forward.

The people we are talking about here are people who are contributing to the economy in every way. These are young people, couples, or single people who went out there and took the brave step of deciding to build or buy their own house. They did not rely on the State to provide housing for them or wait around for something to happen. They decided themselves to get involved in building or buying a home for themselves. They took on and paid all of the costs, including the legal and planning costs, the planning development levies and the VAT that is being put on construction at 13.5%. That is fine. We admire them for that and we should respect them for it. The kernel of the problem is that these same people are now finding themselves becoming the new poor.

I know that prior to the budget there was a good deal of kite-flying going on by different Ministers in respect of what they were going to do in the budget. One of the things I heard being said was that we were going to look after working people and bring in a new rate and band of tax which would help people in the middle-income bracket who need that little bit of support. It has not happened for them and it is not happening now. Since last summer, we have had five or six increases in mortgage interest rates. One might say that it only amounts to 3%, but it is going from 0% to 3% and adds €50 a pop. Every increase of half a percentage point adds €50 onto the average mortgage. That is a good deal of money. When young couples come into my office to talk about how they are struggling, where both of them are professionals who work and pay their PAYE and PRSI, they say they are looking for a small bit of a hand.

Back in my time when we built our house, a subsidy was available to first-time house buyers and builders. It was something like €3,500 and it was paid out, from memory, by way of €1,500 in the first year and €750 subsequently, or whatever the figure was. There was a benefit in it for the first three or four years of the life of the mortgage which gave people a small bit of breathing space so that they could come to terms with the fact of their mortgage. They had to supply everything into the house to ensure they got to a stage where their income probably increased a bit to allow them to live reasonably comfortably and pay their mortgage then.

We now have the new poor. These are the people who are contributing every day to our economy and are the people who did not ask the State for anything. They pay for the costs of going to work and for childminding. They pay for everything. What is wrong is that right now these people are struggling and are actually counting the pennies. They are watching what they do and where they go, and are asking if they can afford to go into town for a cup of coffee, and they cannot. It has gone to that level right now and I am not exaggerating. When people say that they are living like monks at the moment, it is not a joke. They are being serious. These are the people that we expect to be able to go out and do a good day’s work, to enjoy work and living, and to enjoy bringing up their families. Yet the amount of pressure they find themselves under is completely horrendous at the moment.

We owe them little a bit more. I say to the Ministers present that we need to do something in respect of mortgage interest relief on a temporary basis for first-time purchasers of houses, whether they are on a variable rate or on a tracker mortgage. Doing this on a temporary basis over the next two to three years is not going to break this country but it will give the real working people of this country, who are contributing to the economy, a chance and a small bit of breathing space. We need to do this legitimately for these people, and do it now. There is no point in talking about doing it in next year’s budget because there are many people who will find themselves going to the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS. That is not what they want. They do not want to be talking to MABS about how they can restructure a loan. They want to be able to pay the loan and all they need is a little bit of help for a number of years.

See this speech in context