Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)

The other thing is that the birth rate is falling yet our population is going up with a population increase of over 500,000 in recent years. This is putting pressure on house availability. With many vacant houses, there is no real incentive available to owners to rent them out but there is an incentive there that is working for the Ukrainian people, namely, a tax-free payment of €600 to the landlord. If we could do something like that for some of our own people, it would be great for them. People coming from other parts of the world are very welcome to come here if they are coming here to work but it should never be the case that they can come in here, get a payment right away, get on the social housing list and compete with our own people who were born and reared here. We must look after our own people first. I need to clarify something.

I said the cost of a house Kerry was €220,000 to €280,000. I meant it was €220 to €280 per square foot to build, so when we add that up, that comes to over €400,000. I am saying that too many people are having trouble getting the mortgage in the first place and we need to do something about it.

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