I move: That it be an instruction to the Committee, on the Planning and Development and Foreshore (Amendment) Bill 2022, that pursuant to Standing Order 187, the Committee has power to make amendments to the Bill which are outside the scope of the existing provisions of the Bill in relation to the temporary disapplication of the Part 8 planning approval process for local authority own development, specifically in relation to housing developments, subject to specified conditions; and to change the long title to refl…

I support the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, and look forward to voting to express confidence in him this evening. I do so because I see every day the work he is doing. I know he absolutely cares about the people affected by the homelessness crisis, the people struggling with rents and the people who aspire to homeownership. I also know he cares about those who are now being placed in housing because of the massive increase in homebuilding the State is engaging in, thos…

I work closely with the Minister every single day. He works harder than anyone in this House to address and tackle the housing crisis. That is the truth. He has secured an extra €11 billion for housing in the national development plan out to 2030. In 2016 the housing capital budget was €435 million. In 2020 it was €1.4 billion. Next year it will be €2.3 billion, added to by the Land Development Agency, and the work of the Housing Finance Agency. In 2016, 604 social houses were built in this country. The last Govern…

-----that while you condemn capitalism-----

-----you talk about developer led and you talk about market base. Your motion also laments the fact that there are indications that private supply is slowing and you do not seem to see the irony in that.

The Opposition never talks about the hard yards, the issues that are actually involved in delivering housing supply, such as, the reforms to the planning system; access to affordable finance; the apprenticeship system; tackling materials inflation; land availability; and access to private capital. If we want to deliver 33,000 homes per year, and the Opposition says we need more than that, then we need at least €7.5 billion in private capital to complement what the State is doing. The truth is the Opposition is host…

There are a lot more of us here than there are from the Opposition.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am pleased to introduce the Bill to the House. The annual Appropriation Bill is critical financial legislation that must be enacted before the end of the year. It has two primary purposes, the first of which is that it provides legal authorisation for all the expenditure that has occurred in 2022 on the basis of the Estimates voted on by the Dáil over the course of this year. These allocations, known as the sums to be appropriated for supply services, are set out…

I am not laughing at anyone.

I thank all the Deputies who have contributed to the debate. There is broad support for this Bill, which is an important one in the annual budgetary calendar to ensure there is proper legal underpinning of expenditure in the current year. It is also important in ensuring there is legal provision for expenditure to continue next year until the relevant Oireachtas committees consider the Estimates and then for this House to vote on those Estimates. A range of issues have been raised by colleagues. Deputy Mairéad Farr…

Does Deputy Gould never get it wrong?

I move the following Supplementary Estimates: Vote 5 — Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Supplementary Estimate) That a supplementary sum not exceeding €3,445,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2022, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Vote 12 — Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Supplementary Estimate) That a supplementary sum not exceeding €79,000,000 be grante…

I move: THAT Section 125A of the Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999 (No. 31 of 1999) be amended to provide for the specified rate of stamp duty in respect of an insured person in respect of relevant contracts renewed or entered into on or after 1 January 2023 and on or before 31 March 2023 and on or after 1 April 2023 in the manner and to the extent specified in the Act giving effect to this Resolution.

I thank Deputy McDonald for raising the BPFI report today, which confirms that we face an enormous challenge in relation to housing. The Government has been upfront and honest about the scale of that challenge. That is why we brought forward the Housing for All plan, which is showing significant signs of progress in relation to supply overall, which will reach the highest level for a long number of years. Close to 28,000 homes were built in the 12 months to the end of September. Nearly 21,000 homes were built in th…

As the Deputy well knows, we have brought in emergency measures in the context of this winter, which have been approved by this House and are really needed. The reason we have such a level of growth in new rental prices is the mismatch between supply and demand. That is why the Government's core focus is on increasing supply of all kinds of housing, that is, affordable purchase, cost-rental and public housing on a scale the like of which we have not seen for a very long time in this country. The Government is also …

------getting to the level we need it to get to. This is the only side of the House that has a fully-funded multi-annual plan for housing and we are delivering the increase in the units.

All of the renters who aspire to home ownership look to help to buy, the first home scheme and the LDA, all of which Sinn Féin has opposed. The Deputy's answer with regard to rental is to increase tax with a new tax on rental properties, increased tax for landlords and an income tax on capital gains. That is the Deputy's answer to attracting new investment to Ireland and that will not work.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Making better use of existing stock has to be an important part of the overall solution, given the scale of the housing challenge we face. We know that, with the best will in the world, building new homes takes time, with the various stages that have to be gone through, including planning, procurement, bringing services to land, waterways, water, other infrastructure and so on. We have an issue with the underutilisation of existing stock, including in our towns, villages a…

I am conscious this is a new tax that has just been legislated for in the Finance Bill. It is set, as the Deputy knows, at three times the property's existing base local property tax, LPT, rate. As is always the case with a new tax, we will keep the rate under review and see if it is having the desired effect. The whole purpose of this new tax, which the Oireachtas has now legislated for, is to help bring more stock back into active use. That is what we are all seeking to do in this House. We have various instrumen…

-----it be a derelict sites tax or, for the first time ever, a new vacant homes tax. The imperative is to get this up and running. We will monitor the impact to see the extent to which it is having a beneficial effect. It will have some but when it comes to the specific rate, we will be keeping that under review.