Mattie McGrath: Slams Concrete Levy and Roads Funding Gaps

He's had to say that we're debating this year and have the name of debating it and scrutinising and passing it. And Minister said he's before committees and always accountable that two million can be just in this area and we don't know what's about. But he's right to be government. I'm picking up, Minister, on what you said in reply to me when I spoke to you first about, you know, the carryovers and the overruns and then the lack of money for roads, the lack of money to continue planning and development. It was carried over to next year, you're trying to say. So how come they can't get the three million to continue the planning and design of the road from Clockerbred outside Cair right on to Clonmel, Kilcheeddon, Carrigan Shore and indeed down to County Kilkenny and on to Waterford and indeed on to Rosslayer. And why can't they? Why carry over the money if they can't get the money? So this doesn't make sense. And the same as I said, the pavement in Permian, the pavements in overlaids, a lot of road prices have been cut in temporary addition. County councils were never, ever as scarce as they were. I was canvassed them two weeks ago in Carrigan Shore and just happened to be finishing up the overseer in Carrigan Shore. Fine, excellent public service, hard-working man. And he said, look at my depot. I haven't a bucket, a bucket of tear or blacktop or cemented. Nothing. He said, in all these 35 years in the county council was he ever as staffed of resources. Nothing. Nothing. Lovely clean air and nothing inside. And that was only middle of, heading into late October. What happens if we get floods in bad weather? Nothing. So we're handing back money, large amounts of money. You're saying it's not handed back that it's overrun until next year. So if it is why, and we allowed to spend it this year. We have a bridge in Art Finan that's closed with, God, 10 years now, waiting for funding for us, supposedly damaged by the flood. And we're having the shelling. And the thing in the morning is left there, one-way traffic, traffic lights on us. Bridge. We've tried every which way. There's about a million and a half spent on consultants, but no bridge. And there's a local man there, Stephen Grace, great orator and great songwriter. And the song, we often had a song, The Bridge Over Troubled Waters. But this is a troubled bridge over tranquil waters. And it's there with 10 years like that. But more importantly, as importantly, Minister, you were saying to me about the funding, and you can't account for the costs, and the cost increase to the private industry. I put that back directly on you. I mean, that business myself. You've added to the cost greatly. The costs have gone up about 30% for the council to get in contractors or any other projects. But you have added directly to that cost with your carbon tax. Added directly, you mentioned, aggregate and concrete. And then what do you do? The Micah, the Micah people outside the gate today, outside the gate today, trying to meet some of you. And it's not Micah, it's just defective housing. And you've added directly to that cost to pay for your scheme there, which the scheme is not fit for purpose, by putting a 5% levy on every metre of concrete. That's adding to the cost. When that levy should have been put on the suppliers of the concrete. Why should the taxpayers be made pony up here and take the bill again? The taxpayers are great people, and they're carrying wide loads. But at the time when he weighed the horse and he was tackled, and he had the mains, and he had the salines, the big trailer, the cat behind him. The taxpayers beaten down, worn down for carrying the can in all these overruns, and all the hookery went on, and the defective concrete. When it should have been oversight, should have been tested, and it should have been when people want to build their houses in good faith, and did. And I built my own house, self implied, I depended on the materials, and depended on the good contractors. I got them, and my house is still standing, thank God. But the Micah people, and the other people, so you have a scheme now designed for them, that doesn't deal with the foundations. So this is pure lunacy, to think that they can get funding to build on top of a foundation. In my business, if you come along to dig a foundation in any site or any area, and you find gravel, or loose ground, sand or gravel, you have to put in a raft foundation, to make sure you have a good, solid base to put a house on. Now you're funding a scheme, that people are unfortunate to find themselves with their houses crumbling, and you won't cover the costs of the foundation. So whoever came up with this, or whatever engineers advised you to do this, is pure and utter insanity. It's in the Bible even, build your house on sand, you won't have a house. So you can't build the houses, and pay a public taxpayer's money going into it, and the levy that people are being made, drive up the price of concrete, when you're having the proper foundation. If you have the foundation, anybody knows anything about anything, building. This house wouldn't stand long if you had the proper foundation. The most important part of any building is the foundation. Same as any organisation, or anything else, but building a parlance, it has to be a proper foundation. So the foundation, it's the same concrete with the mica, and with the disinfectant, it's gone into the foundations, as it's gone into the rest of the house, the blocks. So it doesn't make any sense. Any lay person, without any technical engineering expertise, would know that. So there, in that case, I just want to rebut what you said, that you can't control the cost. You can. You directly attribute it to the cost increases by putting on. For the next, we passed it for 10 years in the budget. You won't even have a vote on it, that you increase the carbon tax. And then you put the levy on the concrete. Instead of making the big people and the CRHs that are multi-multi-billion companies that have been found guilty of all kinds of trading in many states in Canada and the United States. But here in Ireland, they walk off into the sunset. So those people out here again today, forced to come again to the Dáil today to beg people to try and do something for them. But the folly of a scheme to build a house on a quicksand. That's what it is, the same as quicksand. If the walls are crumbling and the same concrete with the foundation, and I hate because I've troubled with my eyes when I said a blind person could see and know that you can't build the house back on top of a crumbling foundation. It is a shocking indictment and it's more waste of public money on a large scale to be funding these buildings, but they need to be funded, without funding the foundations. I don't know how anyone could draw up a scheme that would fund the building and wouldn't fund the foundation. As I said, the foundation is the most basic part, but I live clearly on your door where the cost increases, but I can't understand how money you said is not going back, it's going into the next year. So why not give the money to the road projects that are stalled now, that the softwares are quaking for wanting money. Their own town can't mail the streets, and the papers are broken up and busted, and the whole town is a shameful state. Why put it in a lecture? We're only in November. I know it's for a special reason this year, in spite of the fact that the teacher kept insisting the election would go full term. So we are expected to have these appropriations. And the other area that I have to forcefully rebut what you said, that we are accountable and you scrutinised. I can't answer yet who authorised and who oversaw, and who signed the procurement documents for the bike shed. I can't explain to the public that asked me tomorrow at the door, someone even, who authorised and who was a procurement officer for this hut that cost £1.1 million. And I'm tired of talking to people, and they're aghast and shocked at the runaway costs of the children's hospital. And who signed the contract on your own Taoiseach, Minister Harris at the time. And now I'm told, to add insult to injury, I'm told, and I haven't just fully corroborated that the same similar contract is being used for the maternity hospital. How could that happen? The definition, and I think this is Einstein, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and expect different results. Are our department officials and all their multiple advisors unable or incapable of having a contract that fit for purpose? There's plenty of expertise out there. Deputy Wallace, when he was here, former deputy, we'll talk about that contract the whole time, so the dual, a hybrid kind of a contract was a disaster. It was an open checkbook. And here we have the result so many years later, no children's hospital. And there's sick children waiting for it. And we're going to do the same now with the National Maternity Hospital. If we have, the lunatics are definitely running this asylum. Thank you. Count Corle, and thanks to all the deputies for the different issues they've raised. So I'll just begin with Deputy Osnoddick, who raised an issue that I'm very familiar with, because he raised it with me on a a number of occasions. I think it is just worth budding this issue in a bit of context here. Out of €104.3 billion that's included within this piece of legislation, we are referring to €2 million of that €104 billion. But what Deputy Osnoddick is doing is, however, raising important issues of principle, people. Because he is saying that this is money which, in his view, is not subject to the normal form of Oireachtas scrutiny. And he wants to know why. And he then wants to know, is any scrutiny applied to us? So firstly, it is the case that this particular estimate is presented to an Oireachtas committee. It's done by me. It's part of the public expenditure vote. So it's done by the Minister for Public Expenditure. However, it is also the case, as Deputy Osnoddick has acknowledged, that when I'm asked what is this money used for, I'm not in a position to inform the Oireachtas in relation to it. And it is a long-standing precedent in relation to this particular fund that it is not subject to the normal kind of disclosure that every other euro that is spent of our country's money is. However, that is not the same as saying that it is not subject to any form of scrutiny, because it is. What happens, because of the unique nature of this particular fund, is the Minister for Justice, the Minister for Defence, provides a certificate to the Controller and the Auditor General, indicating that the money is being used in the way in which it is intended to be used. The Controller and the Auditor General considers that certificate, and then decides whether to provide a degree of authorisation to it or not. And the Controller and the Auditor General has, and has published in their normal accounts a statement to that effect. So while I'm not able to go into the kind of detail that I do about this money and its use, it is still subject to oversight in a different way, and the outcome of that oversight is published, and there is a statement from the Controller and Auditor General in relation to it. In relation to the point that was made by Deputy Boyd Barrett, firstly in relation to the housing issues that he touched on, he talked about, you know, there's no need to be flippant in relation to it. I was being anything but flippant. I was responding back to the arguments that he made, and I do stand by them. I was making the point that while he can advance the case for the state to be involved in directly building homes through a new organisation, that's an absolutely legitimate argument to make. I was simply making the point, though, that in making that case, he shouldn't suggest that the state is not involved in directly building homes, because it is. But it's just done through our local authorities. It's done through Dublin City Council, Dun Laoghaire County Council in his case. And it builds many thousands of homes every year. And the question that I would put to him, which I'm sure we're going to be able to debate at another point, is that if this organisation would be brand new, would it be taking the place of what our local authorities do? Would it be competing with the local authorities? Or would the local authority be subsumed into this new organisation? The contention I'd make here this evening, is the best way of us directly building homes is indeed through our local authorities. And if he wants the state to play a role in the management of land, and I think he's right, that's why we have the Land Development Agency to perform that role. But I know that's also an organisation that Deputy Boyd Barrett doesn't support. In relation to Deputy McGrath, he was refuting arguments, or to use his word, rebutting arguments that I wasn't making. I never for a moment said that the state hasn't played, you know, doesn't have questions to answer in relation to the use of the country's money. I said, we do. I acknowledge that in my contribution back to him earlier on. I was simply making a point that I think Deputy O'Donoghue was acknowledging, and if I'm putting words in your mouth, you'll stand up and you'll correct me, about the fact that there is cost price inflation happening that is not caused by the state. Now, you'll make the point back to me in the concrete levy, and I'll come on and address that in a moment. But I think you would acknowledge, if you do intervene again, that there are things happening now in relation to prices within the economy, that our government is not, this government, or indeed any government, is not in a position to be able to constrain. You know, I can't determine, and the government can't determine, you know, what is the price of concrete. We have added to a bit, but there are other forces going on that are very separate to Ireland at the moment, that in turn are having a really big impact on the issue that Deputy O'Donoghue raised that I'll come on to in a moment. But that's the only point I was making back to Deputy McGrath earlier on. And I'll make the point again, because it has to be made, that a carryover is not the same thing as the money being lost. In fact, it's the opposite. If a department has a carryover, it ensures the money is there for them in the following year, but in the absence of a carryover, they wouldn't be able to spend the money next year. And the reason why it happens is that if you have a department that, for example, is involved in building a bridge or building a road, sometimes the costs fall in a different way during the year to how they would have been planned. And that is why it's at the heart of this. And, you know, Deputy McGrath, you know, continues to suggest that if a project overruns in any way, that that is due to incompetence or inefficiency. At times there are issues there that, you know, I'm accountable to the house for, but the vast majority of the case times, I'll still argue to the Oireachtas that our country's money is used in the way in which the Oireachtas does intended to be used. And you can see that in the quality of new school buildings that have been delivered. You can see this in the quality of the public and social housing that our local authorities are building. You can see this in the impact now of the national broadband plan and the impact that is having on towns and villages. And then finally, Deputy O'Donoghue like raised a really important issue that is actually a really big part in the housing difficulties that we face at the moment, which is, as you said, that over the space of a short number of years, the cost of building a house, the cost of building an apartment has gone up by so much. Now, you're a builder, you're actively involved in this in the way that I'm not. So I suspect I'm going to tell you a few things you already know and know well, but I do want to put them on the record of the house because you've raised important issues. Part of that is the issues I've already talked about, what is happening in raw materials. Part of it is that we do have certain standards that we want to be met that I think are worth meeting, for example, in relation to energy efficiency, but it then has an impact on the cost of the home. And to pretend otherwise would just be to deny that there are trade-offs. If we want homes to be built that have a higher energy rating, and I believe it's worth doing that because over time it will be good for the cost of heating your home, it will go down. I believe it will be good for your health. I believe it will be good for our efforts to get climate emissions down, but there is still a cost for it. The state absorbs some of us, but the person who's buying the home also has to face some of that cost as well. But then what you went on to do then is to say, well, should the state play a role then in lending that home, that money, to deal with the cost of the additional credit that is needed to deal with the cost of building the home having gone up? What I would say to you, Deputy O'Donoghue, is that is the reason why we have help to buy. And that's why we increased the value of help to buy, which we did early in the term of this government. Recognising that help to buy gives back to a taxpayer some of the taxes they've already paid. We link it to only new homes and we include within that self-builds because if your son or somebody else is building that home directly for themselves, it's still adding to housing supply and it's the home they're going to live in. But the very reason we have helped to buy and then increased the value of it is to respond back to the issue that you are raising. And we also have in the first home scheme that was set up between the Department of Finance, the Department of Housing and our banks, a way in which for home purchasers of certain levels of income trying to buy certain homes, the state actually does play a role in trying to bridge the gap between what they can afford and the impact of the macroprudential rules. And that's a way of doing it. But as I said, Deputy, you have called out a big issue which is affecting the supply and the affordability of homes. But we do have schemes in place to try to respond back to us. And I'm sure you'll have views in relation to their adequacy. You may well argue they should be bigger in value or so on. But we are trying to deal with the issue in a way that I've just described. So, Cahir, look, there's been plenty of issues that have been raised here that are not about the spending of money, but are really important to the wellbeing of those that we are trying to serve. And I've done my best to respond back to all of them. The final point I just want to make is Deputy Boyd Barrett talks about the need to support sporting and voluntary organisations. I mean, the sports capital funding that we are making available at the moment in very large amounts of money is a huge effort to do that. And far from the computer saying no, I think in many cases the computer is saying yes, because of the quality of the applications that are coming in. Really amazing applications being made by nearly entirely voluntary organisations all over the country. And then earlier on in the week, the government made available large scale infrastructure funding, a lot of which will be going to organisations that are a lot more than voluntary, that are running really big sporting activity, which is either about sporting excellence, or also trying to continue to support voluntary organisations. So a lot of issues raised, Count Corda, but this is an awful lot of money. Again, I want to thank the House for the cooperation in passing us. And to go back to a point I made earlier on, even though the amount of debate here today may be relatively small, these figures have been debated elsewhere in the practice at some lengths during the year. Thank you.