Sharon Keogan (Independent)

The ambassador is very welcome here this afternoon. I note the contribution that Latvians have made to our economy and our country over the last number of years. There are now about 25,000 Latvian people here and they make a marvellous contribution to our country.

We all agree that desperate times call for decisive measures. The Government's new housing action plan for 2025 to 2030 has many welcome elements: planning reform, statutory guidelines and a promise to tackle judicial review delays. These are a step in the right direction and I commend the Government on the ambition, but I believe this plan can go further. We still have a system where a single objector can hold up thousands of homes. If I were the Minister, I would not be hiding behind layers of bureaucracy. I know he has given an instruction to the county councils to get out and build houses. I would bring every local authority and senior planner into one room and tell them to go out and build houses on serviced sites. We had that opportunity last week in Meath but, unfortunately, county councillors from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin decided not to look at the land that was dezoned, that was serviced sites in the 2019 plan. That was a shame because there will be no houses built in my town. There will be no houses built in many towns around County Meath over the next number of years. The Government needs to start talking to its own councillors on the ground.

Regarding rates, Meath County Council's rates are going up next week as well by 10%. Here we are calling on the Government to do one thing and its councillors are doing something else on the ground.

What we see in this plan is a ballooning of quangos, a housing activation office, six new task forces and agencies and billions poured into a complex web of bodies. We already have 500 housing agencies and 31 local authorities. Adding layers will not build homes faster. Government should exercise its executive functions, not outsource responsibilities to a quango complex. Where are all the real incentives? I have said before that we should declare a temporary amnesty on capital gains tax for house owners selling to families, not vulture funds. Remove the stick and offer a carrot. This would unlock thousands of homes overnight. Why is that not in the plan? To reiterate, I still believe that the way forward is to give real powers to councils to build and not merely advise on zoning.Let us fix inequities like the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, where tenants lose €11,000 compared with council tenants when they try to buy their home. Let us cut the red tape, reduce the quango sprawl, and give people the incentives they need to put homes onto the market. That is how we deliver homes and build communities.