Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party)

From my first day here I have been telling people I have been in the construction industry all my life. I will give colleagues whatever experience I can. Infrastructure is the key and being on budget and on time. From the time Irish Water was set up, it has not brought in one project on budget or on time. If anything, it is over budget all the time. That is the problem. Let it be developer-led infrastructure. Let them build the infrastructure to the design of Irish Water, standards which are there to be seen. Let it be overseen by the county councils and then handed back to them when done. We will get twice the amount of infrastructure and twice the number of houses built.

On the purpose of one-off planning, people want to build their own house and now the contributions have been brought back in again. A person building a house on their own land, which will never have a footpath or public lighting, and supplying their own water, is now paying €5,000 to build a house on their own land. They are paying 20% of their mortgage as tax. They are building their own house and they are not on a list that the Government has to provide houses for them. They are providing their own. They work, pay tax, pay tax on their mortgage, pay a fee to build on their own land, and pay tax on the fuel for their car but they get nothing back from Government even though they are giving everything. They are working for the people who are not able to work and they are not complaining.

I heard contributions today where Members said parents are doing without one meal in every four to make sure their children have food. The travel agencies are telling us people are not booking holidays any more because they cannot afford to go on holidays. These are the people who work hard all their lives and who now want to have a break. They can no longer have a break because it is not affordable. They have to put food on the table and pay bills.

I welcome the planning laws, if they help people build and deal with the serial objectors, which Deputy O'Flynn spoke about. Somebody in Donegal can object to something in Limerick.

Somebody in Cork can object to somebody in Leitrim. That type of stuff has to stop. We have to make sure people can build to the county councils' guidelines when they get their planning and they are allowed to build for the future.

The Minister is going to have to deal with Irish Water and he is going to have to look at development-led infrastructure.

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