Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16
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Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West

For years, Aontú has been in this Chamber arguing about the fact that Ireland has the slowest planning, procurement, licensing, tendering and judicial review processes in the whole of Europe. This housing crisis has dragged on for nearly ten years at this stage. One of the main contributing factors has been that what the Government controlled was absolutely dysfunctional and was not working. We were singular in making that critique of the Government.
The Central Bank today issued a report which confirms the concerns that we in Aontú have raised repeatedly in this Chamber. The time it takes to build a house in this country has doubled in ten years. It used to take two years to build a house in this country but it now takes four years. It stands to reason that that action alone reduces the capacity of the Government and the country to build houses. How come this Government has tied up the whole process in red tape and bureaucracy, with the effect of making it more difficult to build homes in those periods? Why has the Government allowed the situation to become so dysfunctional? It is so frustrating. The aspect of building homes that the Government controls has been made more difficult and longer to achieve by the Government itself. That has led to people being homeless. It has led to people not being able to buy homes. It has led to increases in the prices of those homes. Will the Government go further to ensure that we again reduce the length of time it takes to build a home in this country by making its end of the responsibility more efficient?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-16