Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I look forward to the new guidelines. I appreciate there is no ban or cap as such on building in rural Ireland but there is a complicity of issues. Notwithstanding planning regulations, the issue of the cost of building a house in rural Ireland is something we do need to look at and address. Croí Cónaithe exempts people from some of the challenges and they get grant of approximately €103,000 if they also access the SEAI grant. We need to look at some type of incentive for people who are going to the effort of building a house in rural Ireland. They are making a lifetime investment. Invariably they are going to build a house the value of which they will never actually realise. As a Government committed to and rooted in rural Ireland, we need to look at making it advantageous for people to build houses there.

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