Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister. The motion says it all on the housing policy in the country. The Minister should accept the motion before him. Part of the amendment makes no sense at all. The motion states that according to local authority housing strategies, almost half of all new families cannot afford a house. Numbers on council housing lists have more than doubled from 26,000 to 60,000 families. There are twice as many homeless today as there were in 1997. That is an indictment of the Government. The Minister has the audacity to table an amendment which states that Seanad Éireann acknowledges the achievements of the Government in increasing the share of the housing market going to first-time purchasers and introducing a number of measures to support first-time buyers. What has the Government done for the first-time buyer? It has abolished the first-time buyer's grant, introduced development charges nationwide and increased VAT by 1%. Those three actions have imposed a huge burden on first-time buyers. The 1% VAT adds a huge cost to houses. The development charge can sometimes be in excess of €10,000 per house and the first-time buyer will have to pay that like everyone else in the absence of the first-time buyer's grant which the Government abolished. Can the Minister explain what the Government has done for first-time buyers? This Government has carried out a retrograde step and has drastically increased house prices for the first-time buyer.

The Minister replied earlier to Senator Tuffy to explain why some local authorities are not providing sufficient housing. He wondered why the local authority did not build more houses. From my experience as a member of a local authority, it can only build or buy the number of houses allocated to them by the Department. In some cases, that number is far too small to meet the demand from the authority's housing list. It is unfair to suggest that the local authority provide more housing when it is not allowed to do so by his Department.