Results 24,861-24,880 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: If land zoned for housing for which planning permission has been obtained was capable of being used to house people, there would not be a housing problem in Dublin. We need houses, not planning permissions.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: I understand that and it is agreed to.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: I move amendment No. 48:In page 20, lines 23 and 24, to delete "who is in receipt of an appropriate payment" and substitute "to, or in respect of, whom an appropriated payment is made". This amendment will ensure the subsection will operate correctly, irrespective of whether a payment is made to the claimant or a building contractor.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: Deputy McGrath suggests a report on the cost of delivering a new home in Ireland and the options available for reducing that cost, without compromising the quality of the home. While I have no doubt that such a report would be of interest, I would suggest that this is an overly simplistic approach to the complex issue of why construction has slowed. A report by the Society of Chartered...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: I will run the Deputy's amendment by the relevant Minister and report to him on Report Stage. The Deputy has put forward several amendments to the help to buy scheme provision, which would fundamentally change the purpose and focus of the scheme. The amendments would mean that the tax relief would only become available when a mortgage was drawn down or in the case of a self-build, when...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: If completed houses were not included we would potentially be encouraging the retention of vacant housing stock while incentivising the purchase of newer builds. The occupation of houses rather than their construction is part of the supply issue which we are trying to resolve.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: Four houses are being built for €360,000.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: Approximately €120,000 a piece.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: For €90,000 a piece.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: More of those could be built.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: That is very interesting but it is a matter for the Departments with responsibility for housing and for the environment, it is not a matter for me. It is not difficult to establish the price of a social housing unit built by local authorities. It is a matter of simply taking the final settled contract price and dividing the number of units into it, but a local authority usually builds on...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: I have no problem with the Deputy's proposal but it is not a matter for me.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: The historic evidence is to the contrary. Local authority houses per unit historically were more expensive to construct than-----

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: -----private housing. That was one of the factors that fed into the former Minister, Noel Dempsey's decision around 2004 to move from local authorities building social housing to providing money to local authorities to purchase houses in private housing estates. There were also social integration issues involved, which I always thought was a pretty good idea. The costs of council built...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: The banking division in the Department of Finance discussed the proposal with the banks in which the State has an interest, which would be AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: They had the normal discussions they have; there is constant interchange between the banking section and the Department. I also discussed it with the Governor of the Central Bank, as I mentioned earlier, and I understand the Central Bank took some soundings on how the lender banks, the mortgage providers, would deal with this proposal in terms of the deposit and their willingness to include...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: We were not asking them to input into the policy underpinning the scheme. We were inquiring as to how mortgages operated in practice and how this could fit into their practice of lending as part of the deposit in accordance with the prudential requirements of the Central Bank. Again, the advice of the Central Bank to move the mortgage threshold from 80% down to 70% was to widen it. The...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: The Deputy does not know that.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: He does not because a lot of that could be coming from parents.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: In my personal conversations with the Central Bank, 70% was not mentioned. The figure for the average mortgage was 78.7%. The argument was presented to me that it would incentivise unnecessary borrowing and that it was in the pruential interest to keep the level of mortgages, as a percentage, down.