Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Senator Gavan makes quite a lot of good, commonsense points in this House but the way he is looking at this scheme is flawed. Second-hand house prices are rising more dramatically than new house prices. This scheme tries to put extra stock into circulation. There have been huge complications in Dublin where some funds have bought large numbers of units. Perhaps the Minister of State can clarify this but as far as I am aware these funds cannot claim the first-time buyer's grant on these properties as well. These two things are certainly helping first-time buyers and are bringing more stock into the market, because that is a problem. Builders are not jumping up and down and we are not being overrun by new builds, as Senator Gavan knows. Unfortunately, we still have to try to coax builders into building at present. That is just the market we are in and if there is anything we can do in that regard, we should do it. This scheme has been successful. It is not a miracle cure by any stretch of the imagination. In England, new homes have no VAT on them and that would certainly be a prudent way to go forward. People could say the same thing about that and claim that builders would only use it for profit. I support this section.