Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am concerned by reports that local authorities are imposing extremely high levies on new house construction at a time when such construction is needed to meet housing demand and rents are rising to record levels. The report last Sunday from the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, told us there was a €60,000 levy on each new house and a levy on construction of €351,774 per hectare for sites within 1 km of the Luas line. There have been complaints at the banking inquiry that we rely too much on once-off taxes such as development levies, property taxes, water charges and so on. Why is that still the case? The Government was supposed to change the financing base for local authorities, but these once-off charges are still being imposed and are a huge barrier in meeting urgent housing needs.

Several colleagues referred to a related issue, namely, the slow turnover of local authority properties, with waiting times of up to 40 weeks in some cases, and the slow acceptance of local authorities when they receive offers from NAMA in so-called ghost estates. If there is a homelessness problem, surely there should be a faster transfer of the ghost estate dwellings to people who need housing. We need a housing policy that is about something more than bricks and mortar. Let us use the existing stock and stop implementing policies that push up the price of housing for society as a whole. Let us get rid of the one-off levies because we have replaced those levies with the recurrent taxes.

I am concerned about postcodes having seen the "Prime Time" programme on them. This matter has been raised in the House several times. Seven-digit, non-sequential addresses are to be attached to every house in the country, where, already, 98% of the post is delivered the next day. I compliment the postman who do that; they know where places are. We are hearing arguments that we must introduce the postcodes because every other country in Europe is doing so. If the machinery in the post office knows where Portlaoise and County Offaly are, what is the point in adding seven digits? We could all think of better uses for the €27 million that the project is supposed to cost.