Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Without wishing to hold up the House, I echo the sentiments of Senator Cullinane. The Minister of State said we should consider the whole package. NAMA estimates that in south County Dublin, development levies of €60,000 per house are imposed by the local authority. I had thought the object of having property taxes that were levied annually was to allow us to move away from those once-off items which seriously destabilised the Exchequer in previous times. There is even an extra development levy for houses built near the Luas. I would have thought the object was to help people to live near the Luas. I hope that the continued reasoning for these levies will be considered as the property tax picks up, because they represent a deterrent. Dr. Ronan Lyons from the economics department in TCD has written extensively on the subject. He estimates that there are tens of thousands of euro in the form of taxes and levies included in the price of a house, something we do not need at present as we tackle this housing problem.

The Leader has pointed out repeatedly the problem of low turnover of local authority houses. They go through a period of no occupancy and vandalism before they are eventually passed on to new people. We have a high rate of refusal by local authorities of houses from NAMA. I gather this has improved a little but this housing problem really needs to be tackled. We also have a housing cost problem. Over a decade the price of a house went from two and a half times a person's income to as high as 12 times a person's income. We must not join the cheerleaders for higher house prices, as property pages and supplements in our newspapers do. We want to get those prices competitive. All of that interfered with our ability to house people and our international competitiveness.

The wider perspective to which Senator Cullinane has referred and to which the Minister of State has responded is relevant as well. When we come back in the autumn we need to look at some of these things. Interestingly, Bob Kitchin in NUI Maynooth has found that the local authorities with the most vacant stock in 2006 were those which then went on to build more. They subsequently built the most new empty housing. They have the highest levels of surplus stock and the most land rezoned for future use. This should be for people to live in, not so that others can secure vast capital gains and then go and live in Shrewsbury Road or Ailesbury Road. We almost need to get back to the days when the builder of an estate had one house for himself and built all the rest. They did not aspire to the kind of glamour that the construction industry had in Ireland when it was becoming completely uncompetitive and a massive burden on the economy. If they do come back, let us have it on the customer's terms. The building industry exists to serve people in regard to housing. The craven attitude towards the construction industry, which contributed so much to the problems in the past, must go. If local authorities are part of the reason housing costs so much in this country, I hope the Minister of State will tackle that problem as well.