Departmental Schemes Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-09 ============================================================ Gareth Scahill (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach The Minister of State is welcome. He has answered more of my Commencement matters than anybody else this year. If the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, had been appointed sooner, he would be up there with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan. I thank him for that. The local development levy waiver scheme has been one of the most effective measures introduced to support people to begin building at a time of rising cost and uncertainty. It formed part of a wider suite of actions that helped to deliver housing commencements in recent years and it must be commended. More than 60,000 households have directly benefited from the temporary waiver. It has played an important role in keeping projects viable in communities right across the country. The scheme is now closed to new applicants and those who have been approved have until December 2026 to complete their build. It is important because development contributions can range from €4,000 to over €12,000, depending on the local authority, so for many families, that level of support meant the difference between moving ahead and putting their plans on hold. I want to raise an issue that has come up repeatedly with people in my area. These are people who genuinely acted in good faith and commenced their build within the correct timeframe but did not realise they needed to submit a separate application for the waiver before the closing date. Some were unaware, some misunderstood the process, while others assumed that beginning their build on time automatically qualified them for the waiver. These families are not now asking for special treatment. They simply believe that they need a hand. They believed they were doing everything right. They moved forward when the Government asked them to do so. They are still working hard to complete their homes in time to meet that 2026 deadline. They now find themselves facing unexpected bills of €5,000, €10,000 or more that they had every reason to believe would have been waived under the scheme's remit. This situation is more strongly felt in rural Ireland, where many of these one-off houses are located. Unlike urban developments, rural households do not receive or benefit from the same public lighting, footpaths and connections to public sewerage as urban households. They have to install their own septic tanks and maintain their own infrastructure. The shoulder the costs that urban households face, yet they also pay the same development contributions despite receiving none of the local authority services in return. For many, that has always felt like a heavy and somewhat confusing burden. Now, with the waiver closed, the additional financial pressure is causing real distress among people who believe, honestly and reasonably, that they have met the guidelines on time. These families are building their own homes. It is often their first or forever home. They are not developers or speculators; they are people trying to put down roots in their own communities. I am not calling for a reopening of the entire scheme, but I believe that a fair and practical path - a one-off inclusion mechanism for this limited group - for those who can demonstrate they commenced on time within the qualifying period and are on track to finish before December 2026 would honour the spirit of the waiver without undermining the structure of the scheme. This approach would recognise genuine good faith efforts. It would support households who stepped up when the Government encouraged people to build. It would ensure no family is left carrying an unexpected burden because of an administrative misunderstanding. We have seen the power of this scheme in the commencements in construction activity and the confidence it gives families. A small adjustment now would reinforce those achievements and show that the system remains compassionate, responsive and fair. I acknowledge the progress that has been made and I look forward to hearing the Minister of State's answer. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-09