John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing my time with Deputy McGuinness, if that is agreeable to the House.

I agree with Deputy Nash’s opening comments on the importance of the housing issue. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, and wish him well, along with his colleagues in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, in dealing with the issue. This is the issue on which everything else will turn for the country in the coming years.

I listened to most of the contributions to the debate made both yesterday and earlier today. It has been a frank discussion and I am going to be frank also. For too long, politicians in this House and the other House and at local authority level have sought to gain political advantage by opposing the development of housing. It has happened in every constituency and local authority in the country and I am sure it will happen in the future. There is hypocrisy in the debate on housing. There are representatives here and elsewhere who consistently speak of the obvious need for a supply of extra houses but their voting records and objections say the exact opposite. I have been an elected representative for 22 years and have never objected to housing of any description, be it housing for people with disabilities, as Deputy Tully mentioned, or Traveller accommodation.

With regard to all the thorny issues that we are all presented with regularly, Members have a responsibility to tell the truth to their constituents. There are senior members of Opposition parties in this House who led massive campaigns against housing developments in this city. I am thinking of the northside, in the Clontarf area, in the not too distant past. Representatives have a responsibility, if they are to be taken seriously regarding the supply of houses, not to talk out of one side of their mouth in Leinster House or a council chamber and then out of the other when it comes to local applications that are reasonable. Of course people have a right to object to the inappropriate siting of a development of any kind – I strongly uphold it – but it cannot be stood over that so many Members of this House have such a track record of objecting to housing and then coming in here regularly bleating that we have a shortage.

Deputy McGuinness will be very familiar with the shortage we have in Kilkenny. There is a very limited amount of private housing being built. What is being built is very much aimed at the top end of the market. Some 100,000 people live in Kilkenny city and county. It was 99,000 according to the last estimate but it is probably closer to 110,000 now. The survey mentioned by other Members referred to there being 15 or 16 properties for rent in Kilkenny city and county. There is obviously a huge shortage, putting great strain on very many people. People have different reasons for seeking accommodation. They may be advancing in years or building a family, or they may want to move out of their parents’ accommodation if that is where they are residing. We have a duty, as elected representatives, to try to meet the demand in Kilkenny, Carlow and the rest of the country.

I have a few issues. I welcome the document. It is a broad-ranging one whose success will depend on implementation and the number of houses that are successfully built in the coming years. We should not forget that the basic rules of supply in terms of the shortage that exists apply to the housing market. The market has certain kinks. Over the past 20 years, during my membership of the Oireachtas, various interventions by the Government have not worked for all sorts of reasons but at the moment there is an intense shortage.

I have a couple of suggestions that I hope the Government will be able to take on board to implement the plan on foot of the upcoming budget. We need a massive increase in funding for Irish Water for capital works. So many towns, cities and villages throughout the country that are suitable for development cannot be developed unless the investment is made to address the fact they are at capacity in respect of water or wastewater.

The planning system continues to be too slow and, even more than too slow, too uncertain in its outcomes. I was going to say I will not refer to the cheese plant in Belview seeing as this is a housing debate but the plant is a very good example of how our planning system is not working.

There is also the issue of access to funding for builders, particularly smaller builders. Over the years, Deputy McGuinness and others have mentioned access to credit union funds, and I do not believe we should turn our back on this matter yet.

The shortage of tradespeople has been referred to. I echo the comments made. I find it very disappointing that page 124 of Housing for All contains the only reference to reducing construction costs. It is vague and waffly. Construction costs have increased dramatically in the past 18 months. In the upcoming budget, the Government needs to take specific action to ensure construction costs and their part in this regard are actively reduced if we are to see a pretty quick response in terms of housing construction over the next 12 or 18 months.

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