Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We must be very careful about the requirement that a purchaser have a 20% deposit for purchasing a house. One of the current problems in this country is that a huge number of people in the 25 to 40 year old age group have not had the opportunity to acquire their own property. I accept the reason the Central Bank put forward this proposal of a 20% deposit once the property is over a certain value, but we are not doing anything at present to help people who wish to get on the property ladder. I can give a simple example. If I own a house and I carry out renovations, I can claim back the VAT. Why can we not consider giving a small amount of help to people who are purchasers? Why can we not consider introducing something similar in respect of a first time purchaser, whereby they could get some type of contribution towards the risk they are taking? If we can encourage more people to buy their own property, the demand for the provision of social housing will be reduced.

I recall when I was working in a legal capacity an occasion when somebody with four young children came to my office to pay a deposit on a house. The deposit required was £100 and the cost of the house was £21,000. They did not even have the £100 deposit at the time but were able to borrow it from the bank. They bought the house and were able to service the loan. That was when the interest rate on loans was 18%. Now the interest rate is under 5%, so we should be giving some further assistance to people. We must also fast-track planning for housing development. We are not doing enough on that. There should be a debate in the House on the housing issue, where the delays are occurring and what we can do to eliminate them.