Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will be sharing time with Deputies Paul Murphy and Coppinger. I have just come from the protest to which Deputy O'Sullivan referred. My apologies for being late. It was organised by the people who voluntarily have been out on the streets helping the homeless night in, night out in recent years because they are so appalled by the escalating housing and homelessness crisis. They have presented proposals to which I hope the Government will listen.

The scandalous housing and homelessness crisis results from one central factor in Government policy, namely, that it has facilitated the greed of vulture funds, landlords, property speculators and property hoarders. That is at the core of this crisis. The Government claims that the Opposition criticises but does not have alternatives. It is a dishonest claim and we wish to set the record straight. It is worth noting that before any motions of no confidence were tabled, People Before Profit and Solidarity, on behalf of the protestors, called for this debate on housing solutions. We have presented our solutions many times. I will reiterate them for the Minister of State.

The councils need to provide 20,000 public and affordable housing units on public land each year for the next five years. The Government must immediately stop the sale of public land through public private partnerships, the Land Development Agency or any other privatisation mechanism where such land should be used for public and affordable housing. The National Asset Management Agency's, NAMA's, remaining land assets and cash should be deployed to the provision of affordable housing, which should be genuinely affordable for those on average incomes. In addition, we should give more resources to co-operatives and approved housing bodies as well as increasing the Part V requirement for private developments to at least 20%, which should be taken upfront in land to be built on by the State rather than waiting for developers to decide when they will build.

There should be an immediate rent freeze and an end to evictions on the grounds of sale, which is the main reason people are going into homelessness. There should be genuine rent controls, as is the case in the rest of Europe, to pin rents to affordable levels. There should be punitive and escalating vacant site and property taxes to prevent speculation and hoarding by property developers and to bring empty properties back into use. Local authorities should have and use aggressive compulsory purchase powers to take over land and property that is lying vacant. There should be a constitutional right to housing for all.

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A minimum of an extra €2 billion a year should be put into the provision of social and affordable housing. That money should be raised by a levy on the profits of landholders and speculators, closing down the loopholes the Minister has given those speculators, using NAMA's cash and using the money in the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. If this council housing was built, it would generate income for the State rather than the State paying out €700 million on RAS, HAP and other leasing arrangement payments.

In addition, as an essential measure the Minister should raise the income thresholds for social housing to the income levels of ordinary working people who are currently being lopped off the list. That will give the social mix required. Real supports should be given to people who are in homeless accommodation, particularly children so they will not suffer the child abuse and neglect they are currently suffering.

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