Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and I thank him for introducing this welcome Bill. I support what he said in respect of housing supply. It is marvellous that almost 69,000 units were completed in 2003, the ninth record year in a row for house completions. The figures for 2004 also look good.

I was interested in his comment that thanks to the serviced land initiative, there is a good land bank available throughout the country. The figure for Dublin, at eight years, is higher than that for the remainder of the country, at five years. That is an important point. The Minister of State also spoke about the stamp duty exemption, which is very important for first time buyers of second-hand property and has been welcomed by young people.

The Bill is urgent because private financial institutions wish to have access to the affordable housing mortgage market. Bank of Ireland intends to launch an affordable housing mortgage product early next year and the Educational Building Society also has an interest in this sector. On the news this morning we heard about a European mortgage, an area of the market which our financial institutions are anxious to enter and where I hope they will be successful in providing funding for affordable housing.

I remember hearing the word "claw-back" as far back as the 1970s. The late Jimmy Tully was Minister for Local Government in the coalition Government that built many extra houses. It was the first time I heard of people profiteering by buying their houses from the county council, selling them and making a profit. To make matters worse, there were incentives for people to leave local authority houses and inevitably good tenants and home owners left estates. It was made clear by the Minister then, and everyone supported him, that there could not be a situation where people were making profits by buying houses and the claw-back was introduced as an anti-profiteering measure.

There have been some good initiatives in recent times, particularly involving local authority, health board and other publicly owned land. The Taoiseach spoke recently about the release of health board lands for housing initiatives. This move has been popular in County Galway, where the Western Health Board has large areas of land, particularly in Ballinasloe, that could be used for affordable housing. Vocational education committees, county councils and tourism bodies could also become involved in land swapping. Land owned by the agricultural college in Athenry is being taken for road widening and for the new roads from Galway to Ballinasloe and Dublin and some of that land will become available for affordable housing. I hope those people in the Department who have received submissions from Galway County Council on those proposals will ensure there is development in the affordable housing area.

It is unfair to blame local authorities for the delays with the provision of affordable housing. Yesterday's Irish Independent contained articles on many of the initiatives. The tenor of the articles was that these initiatives are being taken because the local authorities have fallen down. Some local authorities are not as enthusiastic about these schemes as others but there are many proposals from local authorities for affordable housing and they should be proceeded with. These are popular schemes and if we could build housing for the prices mentioned in the newspaper yesterday, there would be property that young people could buy and use to get on to the property ladder.

I am referring to an article in yesterday's Irish Independent which is headed "Plan for 30,000 low cost homes offers new hope for house buyers". This article describes two schemes, one which will give us 25,000 affordable houses over four years and another, involving the Irish Home Builders Association, which will result in an additional 5,000 such houses in the next two and a half years.

The first scheme, which involves the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance and the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, envisages new homes with an average price of €220,000 in Dublin and €180,000 elsewhere. This radical plan is welcome. The land, owned by health boards or the Department of Agriculture and Food, is available.

The Irish Home Builders Association scheme involves council developments that have large open spaces that are under-used — sometimes leading to anti-social behaviour — which could be used for affordable housing. Local authorities should consider amending county development plans to ensure this land is available.

Delivery for these schemes is targeted for the next few years, with 1,500 houses in 2005, 6,000 in 2006, 8,500 in 2007 and 9,000 in 2008. I hope the initiative will be a success. Many builders say it will ensure a dramatic turnaround for people on social housing lists and for those who cannot get a foothold in the private housing market.

There are many plans and it is up to us to show the will to work on them. The measures in this Bill are important because they will allow money to go back to the Exchequer. It was very simple in the past when the local authorities did everything to build houses and provide loans. We saw, however, that when people were stuck on fixed interest rates with their local authority, they could go to the private lending institutions and get their mortgages at a lower rate. Many of the county councils were glad to off-load these mortgages and have the loans provided by the financial institutions. We in County Galway have the best of both worlds. Galway County Council states that it can be a lender of last resort, and people can go back to it if they cannot get finance at a decent rate in the private sector. As far as the council is concerned, however, it has done its part in providing loans and there are other options now of which people can avail.

It is great that newer schemes have been introduced by successive Governments, none more so than the present Government and the Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern. The voluntary, social and affordable housing schemes will help many people. I hope the Government's good record of building more units can be continued. We should make clear that we are not always talking about houses. As Senator Browne said, various types of accommodation are available.

The Bill before the House is short, but it is important because it will tidy up a loophole. Many Governments have examined this issue since 1974 or 1975, when I heard the phrase "claw-backs" used for the first time in respect of people who were allocated housing but sold them off after a number of years. I welcome the Bill, which I hope will be passed by the House quickly.