Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We could stay here all night and all day talking about building houses. It saddens me. I have said this many times. I spent five years on the joint committee with responsibility for housing and we have lost our way. The Government makes announcements. Let us take the announcement on the fees, which I welcome very much. I refer to waiving the fees for Irish Water and the planning development fees on houses. I was delighted this happened. There is a deadline and people are caught in it. Sneakily, and I raised this issue with the Taoiseach last week, the Government is going to allow a 5% levy on all concrete products from September. It is going to impact every man and woman who wants to build, buy or rent a house. One hand does not know what the other is doing.

I refer to the bureaucracy involved in getting planning permission and the lack of people able to build in the country because of An Taisce and people with whom the Minister of State's party is very closely associated. There is then the whole situation of not being able to build in a village or small town because there is no capacity in the sewerage system. This is a chronic situation. Throughout the country, there is no capacity in sewerage systems.

This motion is a good one and parts of it are very good, but the Government is putting blockages in the way of people building houses across the board. If people have sites and want to get planning permission, it will not be given to them. If it is inside a town, if people are told to build in a settlement, and if there is no capacity in the sewerage works, then it will not be possible for them to get planning permission. There is also a convoluted application process for many of the schemes in place. One cancels out the other. Simplicity is what is needed here.

Also needed, of course, is the recording of the numbers of people in homelessness and those who die in homelessness, which is shocking.

The Government seems to be shockproof with regard to having feelings about people dying in homelessness or in State care or who have died because of many issues.

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