I welcome this proposal and support it. The fact apartments are not included for higher tax and within the maximum of nine needs to change. The Central Bank estimates 47,000 homes are owned in the State by investment institutions or vulture funds, with 500 of those in Laois. This distorts the housing market. It drives up house prices and means these investors are competing with first-time buyers. We need to make thousands of affordable houses to buy and cost-rentals that are not for profit available. There is a chronic shortage of those in Laois. The Minister was there last Friday and I welcome that. He saw some examples of what can be done, even within the strictures at present. The first thing required is money. The Minister cannot pull money out of the sky and I will not come in here and say he can. However, there is €170 billion on deposit in banks and building societies. Several years ago, the Irish League of Credit Unions said to the Government publicly that it had €8 billion or €9 billion and that this could be used for home construction with a modest return on it. That did not happen. There is €170 billion there now so let us have a housing bond scheme for ordinary citizens. They can buy into that and get a modest interest rate tax-free or at a reduced tax rate. Let us use it to solve this issue. Money is needed for housing infrastructure because we need infrastructure to have housing. We also need money for home construction. This needs to become a national mission, similar to the rural electrification scheme. That was only a generation or so ago. We were behind the rest of Europe when we started but by the time we finished in the late 1960s, we were ahead of much of Europe. We can do that again. That needs to be driven by the Housing Agency and the Land Development Agency, with the local councils. The Minister saw what a small council like Laois County Council is doing. It can be done by councils; there is the proof of it. The cohort most under pressure is the squeezed middle. In my book, and it may be lower for Government - Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael - it is those people who are just above the social housing limit of €35,000 income limit and under €70,000 who need assistance. They are unable to get a mortgage and cannot get on a local authority waiting list, so we must have a solution for them. The solution is mixed developments with affordable to buy and cost-rental properties, the very same as what the Minister saw in Rath Rua last Friday, which he will agree is a good development. There is a big demand for one- and two-bedroom accommodation and we must provide that. However, the core element has to be not-for-profit and we must involve ordinary citizens in this. Let us set up a housing bond system. Let us move this away from the investors, as the motion proposes. This needs to be a national initiative. We need to get families and workers owning their own houses or having secure tenancies for life.

Sentiment score: 0.06