With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 17 and 18 together.
As I have indicated in reply to a question by Deputy Moore on 23rd April, 1968, and elsewhere, I intend to introduce shortly proposals for legislation relating to the demolition or change of user of habitable houses.
In so far as control of non-residential or the more expensive residential building is concerned, I am not satisfied that a system of licensing with restrictive conditions of the type mentioned by the Deputy would be in the public interest, primarily because there is no guarantee that the finance for these projects would not be diverted to other purposes or to other countries, with adverse effects not only on the building industry, in which employment has grown from 59,600 in 1961 to 73,000 in 1967, but on the economy as a whole. Neither am I convinced that, in the ultimate, the system would result in the erection of more houses.