A CLARE county councillor has called on the government to give a grant of €30,000 to people building their own houses, writes Owen Ryan.

THIS week’s meeting of Clare County Council heard a call from Councillor PJ Kelly for Government to be requested to introduce the grant. He said that in the past proportionally larger grants had been available.

The Lissycasey man said that he had done some research and his view is that a very large proportion of the cost of building a house is the money one ends up paying to the State.

“There’s a sum of €70,000 to €90,000 that anybody building a house has to pay to the State,” he claimed.

He said that in addition to more obvious costs, duty on fuel, income tax on workers, and tax on profits made also goes back to the State.

Councillor Kelly claimed that the €70,000 to €90,000 is “a separate mortgage to be paid back over 20 or 25 years”.

He said that when he built his own house in the 1970s there was a grant available, as long as the house was below a certain size.

At that time he said the grant was equivalent to around one sixth of the cost of building the house. 

Councillor Joe Garrihy supported the motion, saying that any incentive would be welcome for building in rural areas where planning permission is expensive as is the cost of building a house.