Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)

I want to back up my colleague and others who have said that this is incredible. The Minister needs to explain the basis on which the decision was made to hand money over to developers and investor funds that are already building these homes. What is happening is illogical. What is the rationale behind it? We need an explanation. This involves significant amounts of public money. Is it another example of the Government wasting public money with no consideration? It is in the same line as the decisions made by the new Minister for housing when he got rid of the tenant in situ scheme. He had to row back somewhat on that when he realised what he was doing was pushing people into homelessness. This is another example of an ill-thought-out policy that is clearly just responding to lobbyists.

I have a direct question for the Minister. Under the croí cónaithe cities scheme, developers can get a subsidy of up to €140,000 per apartment.

Will the Minister clarify for us tonight that this VAT reduction is on top of that?

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