Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

As someone who has been in construction all my life, I have spent the past five years in the House telling people they cannot build houses without infrastructure. We cannot build houses without having water, sewerage, electricity and an Internet service. The LDA has not built one house in Limerick. It publicly stated it would not invest 15 minutes outside any city. That takes out two thirds of Limerick county. This is what the LDA has set out to do. I was a councillor on Limerick City and County Council. A lot of the things we did and the powers we had were stripped away from us. We are the people on the front line trying to deliver for our communities. We have first-hand information on what is needed in the area that elects us. This is what is being stripped away. The local councillors need to get back the powers to make decisions for the entire county, which includes the cities, so that we build together.

When he was Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien came to Limerick and travelled around the county announcing houses here and there that were being finished. On every site I went to with him and other representatives, I asked him to ask the people who were there, including the developers and builders, how much more capacity was left on the sewerage and water systems. Every one of them came back and said zero. How do we build houses for Ireland? We invest in infrastructure for the country.

Everyone should be entitled to live where they want in the city or the county. Our planning laws have stripped away intervention from councillors and they stop people living in the county. They stop investment in our villages, where businesses can be sustainable if they get the proper infrastructure, including sewerage and water to start with. This is what is needed in this country to deliver houses.

We all know the Government made promises to exceed the housing targets. It did not do it. Now it wants agencies to get more powers so it can build houses. Again, it comes back to the basics. Where does it want to build the houses? Is it forgetting about the rest of the people in Ireland who are also entitled to have a place to live? No matter where you are from in Ireland, you should be entitled to have a place to live. The planning laws need to change so that if a site in a county is big enough, a person who wants to downsize and let the next generation of their own family move in will be allowed to build a smaller house on the same site. That is not allowed under the planning laws. It is why we have houses being put up everywhere.

When Ukrainians came here a lot of investment was made in modular housing. The money was given to an agency to provide these modular houses. The figures on Government spending show these modular houses cost twice the price of dealing directly with the modular house companies. The money went through an agency that made a 100% profit on modular houses. This is wrong. There should be accountability. Let the money go further and get value for the money we have and invest in infrastructure in the country, not just in one place.

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