I thank the Deputy. On an addendum, he raised with me on Report Stage of the Finance Bill a specific issue in relation to rental properties and their availability in Donegal. I undertook to engage with the Minister for housing on that. I sent him the information from our discussion and I will be engaging with him in January. I am happy to talk to the Deputy further about this. I am aware that this is a very difficult situation for homeowners. I do not need to tell the Deputy, of all people, about the many homes aff…

I believe people. I believe them when I meet them. I believed them when I sat in their kitchens in the Deputy’s constituency and county. They have told me about some of the issues they are still experiencing regarding shortfalls, anomalies or issues with banks. They raised some of those issues with me quite truthfully when I was in Donegal, which I believe, from memory, was during the month of August. We are trying as a Government to continue to respond and evolve the scheme. We are seeing an increased uptake. That…

Let me reflect on what Deputy Doherty said. While some of this is not within my direct remit, I am a leader in government and am not recused from responsibility. My sense from engaging with people in Donegal and other parts of the country is that the scheme is now working for more people than it was but that there are still some who have significant concerns that they cannot access the scheme, and that there are other areas, beyond privately owned homes, where people are still asking how they will resolve the issue…

Are they the Chair's people? Hello to them.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 177 and 364 together. The Deputy was determined to ask this question because it came in as a priority, regular oral and a written question. I am glad it got tabled because it is an important issue in relation to the expenditure of public money and the impact of that on the delivery of housing. A well-functioning housing market, we can all agree, is crucial to supporting labour mobility, improving competitiveness and ensuring that Ireland remains an attractive location for both domes…

I am not aware of any research or information that is not already in the public domain but let me double check. I bring the Deputy back to the political decision we made - and it was a political decision - in relation to recognising that viability is a major issue when it comes to apartment construction. Only a month or two after the budget, and I do not want to reach too much into the data, the initial data is somewhat encouraging. The Society Chartered Surveyors in Ireland which has expertise and certainly indepe…

I have heard Deputy O'Callaghan make this point before and he holds a legitimate policy viewpoint on linking this to affordability. My predecessor was clear and I am clear too: this is a viability measure. While I do not have it in front of me, we have seen a very small example of where this measure has led to people building apartments to say that it has reduced the costs. However, it has not been introduced primarily as an affordability measures; it has been introduced primarily as a viability measure. There are …

I thank Deputy Ward for taking this question on behalf of our colleague, Deputy Pete Roche. As part of the budget process, my Department annually conducts distributional analysis to examine the impact of proposed tax and welfare measures on a range of households. Given the variety of ways in which means tests are applied it would not be possible to do such analysis specifically on households that do not qualify for means tested supports. As in previous budgets, distributional analysis was conducted through the deci…

It is a very interesting point. This week, the Minister, Deputy Foley, took a very important step forward in publishing the first instalment of the action plan on childcare. That has a number of areas on which she is endeavouring to move including on the issue of staffing and pay but also in trying to provide maximum fee caps starting with lower income families. Next year has to be about publishing a comprehensive plan that gets us from here to the destination envisaged in the programme for Government of €200 per m…

Sometimes it is like Goldilocks – too hot, too cold or just right. In every debate I do on finance, whether it is here or the media, the first half is spent saying we spent too much money and the second half is a list of things we on which we should have spent more. The job of the Minister for Finance, the Government and the Oireachtas is to try and get the balance right. The first of five budgets had to be about getting back to a regular pattern of budgeting and being very clear to everybody in this country and ev…

That is absolutely right. We have to keep the means test under review so they do not become mean. That is why we took a number of steps in the budget, particularly around carers, to make sure more people qualify because, ultimately, we want to phase out the means test. The Department of Social Protection, certainly in the previous Dáil, was working on reviewing the means test. I will seek an update for the Deputy on that. We live in a country where wage growth is outstripping price growth on average. For the first …

As stated earlier in relation to my Department’s forecast on inflation, an uptick was anticipated. That was down to what it describes as the base effects. The CSO outlined that the increase in inflation since September is largely accounted for by base effects. As a result, the assessment relating to inflation for next year has not materially changed. That is important to say because I understand that the cost-of-living pressures faced by people are real. They see individual items of inflation and individual reports…

I very respectfully make the point that we put in place an extraordinary level of support for people over the past four years. Thank God this country was in a position to do that. We did it at a time of very high inflation. Those measures always had to be temporary. It is always difficult to unwind such measures, but I am crystal clear that if we did not get back to a situation of being able to deliver one regular budget each year, the position would not be fiscally sustainable into the future. It also would not ne…

I thank Senators for their contributions. I will start with Senator Daly's recommendation. As he said, it was not procedurally in order but the point he was making was very much in order and I thank him for making it. I assure him that I have heard him and his views on the matter can be considered as part of the normal budgetary process for future years. I have asked my officials to consider this as part of the tax strategy group in advance of the budget. Every year, as Members will know, we have a tax strategy gro…

-----with which the EU has an agreement. There is also the issue of what has transpired. The Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, has apprised me of this in terms of how the industry has changed in the Netherlands where it is now conglomerates essentially running the industry. They are clearly winning a lot of influence to get the outcome they got last week.

I thank the Cathaoirleach for his good wishes. I very much look forward to working with Seanad Éireann in the time ahead. I thank Senator Murphy for the recommendation, which, as he outlined, seeks a report on removing USC from the first €40,000 a person earns. We all know that USC was designed and incorporated into the Irish taxation system in 2011 to replace two other charges, namely the health levy and the income levy. The primary purpose of USC is to widen the tax base and provide a steady income to the Exchequ…

Senator Byrne summed up Fine Gael's position very well. It is always right that the issues are scrutinised, but we have an economy that is very reliant on people coming in and investing in our country, on the jobs that brings to our country, and indeed on the corporation tax and the revenues that creates in our country. One only has to look at last week's November Exchequer returns to realise how important a part it is. With respect to everybody in this House and the other House, every day there are more demands to…

That is why the Government delivered a budget that was by any objective standard, and in fact by objective measures, a progressive budget. Sometimes we try to differentiate in conversation between corporations, foreign direct investment and the people of Ireland. The people of Ireland are working in the companies that have set up here in all of our constituencies across Ireland. The people of Ireland, including the very people the Senator mentioned, are benefiting directly from the revenues those investments bring …

In a housing emergency, you prioritise building houses. The idea that the State can do everything is not true and is not a good use of public money. If the State were to do everything, we would not meet the type of housing that is needed by many people in this country. There is demand from many people for privately owned homes and apartments. It would not be a good use of our resources to constantly say that every single euro needed for housing will come from the Exchequer because that would mean we would not have …

To answer, it would cost a hell of a lot more to build the apartments than €1 million.