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

Housing for All is a miss because the Government is not providing houses for all. If it were, it would allow the people who want to provide their own houses to build them, and it could then provide more houses for the people who need them. What it is actually doing is pricing people who want to build their own houses out of the market. It is then allowing vulture funds to buy up housing in mass amounts and charge extortionate prices to people if they want to be housed.

The Government is also not looking after the elderly. If people want to see their families grow, whether they are in a city, village or town, or even rural areas, planning laws should allow people to be located in places where they grew up and made their lives. They should be allowed to downsize, allowing younger couples to take on the family house or build a small house on the site.

If it is environmentally correct, they should be allowed to build it. However, the law states that, if you want to build a granny flat, it must be built onto the house. What is wrong with being 5 m or 6 m away and having a small bit of separation? What is wrong with building single-storey houses in the cities for the elderly population or high-rise units of three or four storeys to accommodate people who want to downsize and live in a safe environment within the cities? The Government is not building such properties. Many people who have houses, even in the cities, have a small bit of greenery. They want that small bit of greenery and to be out in the garden and so on but the Government has not allowed for that either. Infrastructure and common sense are key when you want housing for all. I ask the Government to consider a common-sense approach, to allow people to build and downsize and to stop overcomplicating matters.

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