Aontú Leader has questioned the priorities of EU leaders as they consider reforming spending rules for Member State governments to increase defence spending, yet the same rules penalise spending more on housing in Ireland.
The Meath West TD said:
“It has emerged from recent EU leader discussions that Poland presented a paper outlining that the current fiscal rules for spending should be reformed to advance more spending in defence in response to the threat from Russia.
However, there have been limited discussions about reforming spending rules for housing investment while Ireland languishes during a housing crisis. Fiscal rules that were introduced after the crash limited how much national governments can spend on specific areas, and Aontú want to see these reformed to allow for more investment and funding from the EU to tackle house building in Ireland.
Changes to funding rules in recent times have meant it has been harder for house builders to get funding from the EU and EIB to build large scale housing developments, and this must be part of any reform to rules for funding.
It would appear that the EU wish to prioritise bombs over homes, a deplorable knee-jerk reaction that will not benefit citizens in any of the members states. I will be engaging with the Minister for Public Expenditure to ensure any legislative changes to how we spend taxpayers money includes the provision to invest in our housing market.”
