Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

-----who is willing to come into the Chamber. Other people grandstand, shout and roar about housing. I am glad and proud that this Government is strongly focused. The provision of more housing is one of the main objectives of this Government. We must ensure protection for people who are looking for their own houses or to rent local authority houses or houses provided by approved housing agencies. We have, however, many difficulties to overcome.

I wish to highlight an initiative about which the Opposition has been silent. I thank the Minister for his work and compliment him strongly in this regard. The new planning exemptions will apply to the adjustment of existing houses, the subdividing of houses and the provision of accommodation overhead in shops and pubs. We are trying to tackle the scourge of dereliction. It is ironic to think that at a time when we want more housing, we have such a number of vacant properties.

We must also tackle the long waits in turning around local authority housing and ensure that when a house becomes vacant, it will be treated the same as a house in the private sector, turned around and rented out again. We do not have that at present. The Government and local authorities must work hand in hand to ensure we turn properties around quickly.

The exemptions in respect of modular homes will also help our planning authorities, which often struggle with an awful lot of red tape and officialdom. That will, thankfully, be sorted out by these new exemptions, which will clear their decks to deal with what they should be dealing with, which is applications from people who are seeking to build, particularly on their own family farms. These are people who want to provide a house for themselves and hope to secure planning permission to do so.

Before I move away from local authorities, I will raise an issue those in the Opposition know an awful lot about, that is, serial objectors. Unusually for an institution such as Dáil Éireann, and this is something that many members of the public do not realise, in parties such as Sinn Féin and others, there are serial objectors. People are on the record as having objected to thousands and thousands of homes. The majority of normal people go through their lives and do not object to one house. They do not object to anything and are able to carry out their lives that way.

However, some people use their political platform to stop development. How can people stand up in Dáil Éireann and say they want housing to be provided while at the same time, when somebody comes along and puts in a planning application in their area, they object to it and think that is all right? They object for various reasons but, to be honest, those reasons are best known to themselves. I cannot understand why anybody would use his or her position as an elected representative to object to somebody else having a home, be that a flat, an apartment or a house, just because that representative does not want it and somebody else has asked him or her to object to it. That is crazy.

What should happen, when it comes to objections, is the €20 fee that is there at present for putting in an objection, and the €200 fee to take somebody to the board, should be increased by many multiples of euro. Why? If people have a genuine complaint, they will not mind paying money to put in that observation or objection, but if they are doing so for very frivolous reasons and have to stick their hand in their pocket to stop somebody else from having a home, and have to pay a higher price for it, it might stop them doing that type of activity.

I note the absence of Labour Party Members. They were the people who were going to build a million houses. They are interested in building a million houses out of thin air and also seeking another new bike shed. That was what they wanted to build. They wanted to take the bike shed from the back of Leinster House and put another out the front. That has to be put on record. It is there on the public record that the leader of the Labour Party wrote a letter to the Ceann Comhairle asking for a bike shelter to be provided on the Kildare Street side of Dáil Éireann.

With regard to our banks, AIB and BOI, I deal every day with people who want to borrow money from the bank. They are workers who want to borrow money to get a mortgage but they cannot because of those two banks, which were served very well by the taxpayers of this State in keeping their doors open. I appreciate the work our banks do, but why in the name of God are they closed to giving people loans and mortgages? It is impossible for young people to get a loan from the banks at present.

I welcome the fact we have a grant scheme for vacant and derelict houses but, unfortunately, there are an awful lot of problems administering that. People are finding it very cumbersome and awkward to get through that process. Of course, local authorities charged with administering the scheme have to be prudent and careful, but there is such a thing as prudence and such a thing as making something virtually impossible for a person to qualify for. If a person owns a derelict or vacant house and wants to do it up, and this Government wants to give assistance in providing a home for that person or somebody else, surely we can look at the difficulties we are having in administering the scheme and streamline those to ensure it will become a more user-friendly way of getting the financial assistance people are entitled to.

On private investment, this Government acknowledges, which the Opposition does not, that we need private involvement in the housing market. Again, there are parties on the other side of the House that really think we will be able to pull billions and billions - up to €20 billion a year - out of thin air and put it into housing. We will not be able to afford to solve the problem on our own. We need private investment. Maybe people in the Opposition do not like that but if we want to protect people who need a home for themselves, and we want to do good by those people, the only way we will do so is by providing more and more opportunities for homes for them to live in. At present, we are not doing that. One of the reasons we are not doing it is that the confidence has gone out of private investment because people are looking at what is being said in places such as Dáil Éireann. People are forgetting the fact that for those who provide accommodation, the Government takes the biggest stake out of that in taxation on rents. Everybody is talking about high rents but nobody is talking about the fact that, in many cases, 56% of that is tax. It is tax. That is where the money is going. It is not going into anybody's pocket. It is going in tax. These people are collecting money, but they are paying up to 56% in tax.

We need to provide more housing. We have a big job of work to do but this Government has the practical solutions. It has the drive and determination to take the necessary measures. I support the Minister for housing in what he is endeavouring to do. I really do. We need somebody who will catch this problem, who will catch the bull by the horns and really tackle it, who will be imaginative and who will try to instil confidence back into the housing market. The actual cost of providing housing has gone through the roof, as has the cost of building. When people are doing their sums, it quite simply does not make sense any more for people in the private sector to provide accommodation. That is one of the biggest problems we have. When they see some of the statements that are coming from people in opposition, that certainly will not give them the confidence to get involved in the housing market.

One of the biggest losses we have is the fact that small builders are a rare breed at present because they have gone out of business. Not only do we need big developers to provide big housing schemes, we also need, and this was a very important person, the person in a local parish, community or town who built one, two, three, or maybe five or ten, houses a year, but were doing so year on year. We need expertise and good advice in housing. There are what might be called big developers in this country who have been at it for decades. They are people who are reputable and have been steeped in the provision of housing for decades. We have to look to those people for advice and guidance when it comes to exactly what we will do in future to tackle this ever-increasing problem. We have a growing population and so many young and beautiful people growing up here. We want to be able to retain them. We want to be able to keep them in this country. One of the most important things they will need for themselves and their families in the future is a home they can call their own. We have a big job of work to do. I hope the measures that are being taken will be helpful.

The fact is that An Bord Pleanála has a free hand at present as it has no statutory times or dates. I welcome the fact that will change. I welcome that it will have to ensure it will deal with appeals in a timely and swift fashion.

I do not want to eat into anybody else's time. We can listen to the shouting and roaring but what we need is a Government of action. I believe the measures taken over the past couple of weeks are the first steps in the right direction, but we need to grow confidence in the housing sector to ensure that more and more houses can be built over the coming months and years.

See this speech in context