Finance Bill 2025 [Certified Money Bill]: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-09
============================================================

Cathal Byrne (FG), Cultural and Educational Panel

It is important to recognise that if, as a country, we are to get to grips with the housing crisis, we must ensure we have privately built houses that are available to first-time buyers, people who are downsizing and people who are moving into their forever homes. The reality at the moment is that the companies which are building those houses are saying to us that it is not viable to do that.
The reality is that the State cannot provide every housing unit that is needed. There is a very important role for the State in the construction of housing. That is why we have councils and the Land Development Agency building houses on public land. However, there must also be a recognition that the State cannot provide everything. We must ensure that private builders are able to build houses in a viable way to ensure that supply of houses reaches the targets that the Government recently set in the housing plan. It is important to recognise that a measure such as this ensures that the viability gap in the construction of those much-needed apartments is reduced. I would certainly like to see a scenario whereby every person who is starting out in life, is able to get a mortgage, is working and wants to get ahead, particularly in our large urban areas, such as Dublin, is able to purchase an apartment. Without this measure, it will simply not be possible to ensure the construction of those homes.
While I appreciate the point that Senator Conor Murphy is trying to make, it is important to recognise the reality of the market, which is that we must have private developers building much-needed apartments. Therefore, on behalf of the Fine Gael party, I support this measure.

---

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