Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response. The problem is that there is a void at the very heart of the Government's housing plan, which is the lack of an ambitious public housing delivery programme, based on the level of need that is out there. Even if the Government meets its social and affordable housing targets, which I do not believe it will, it will come nowhere close to meeting existing needs, let alone growing, emerging and future needs.

The reason I do not believe the Government will meet its targets is that of the 9,000 newly built social homes that were to be delivered this year, just over 600 were delivered in quarter 1. That is roughly the same as the same quarter last year, when there was lockdown. Even the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, started to use the figure of 8,000, today, rather than 9,000. Maybe he is gently breaking the news to us that the targets will be missed.

The Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, made reference to the cost-rental targets. Some 169 have been delivered to date this year, of a very low target of 700. Clearly, it will be a challenge to even meet the 700 by year's end. Some 700 is nowhere near enough. With regard to the affordable purchase side, the target is 450 to 500 and none have yet been purchased. Some are close, but they are in the tens, not in the hundreds.

That is why this motion centres around the need for a minimum of 20,000 social, affordable rental and affordable purchase social homes. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, asked where the homes would come from. Of course, if he had read the motion, he would have gotten some indication. We have tens of thousands of vacant homes. If local authorities were given a dedicated financing stream to purchase those properties, up front, for social or affordable use, we could turn many of those around.

Increasing Part V, not just for land bought from this year, but for planning permissions on land that had been bought previously, would deliver more social and affordable homes. With 90,000 planning permissions out there and a nervousness among the private sector, because of construction sector inflation for starts next year and the year after, a more assertive turnkey programme for mixed-tenure, social, affordable, rental and affordable purchase estates could combine to yield a far greater output. The money and planning permissions are there. What is lacking is the political will. We also need urgent action for renters. Rents cannot continue to rise at the rate which they are currently rising. Renters need the crucial relief of a three-year ban on rent increases, as well as putting one month's rent back in their pocket.

However, this motion also talks about a number of other issues, some of which are the direct responsibility of the Minister of State. We still do not have enough urgency with the implementation of the 32 recommendations of the expert group on Traveller accommodation. I know many people are doing considerable work, but the outcome is key. When we look at what is happening throughout the State, we are still seeing many local authorities not spending their Traveller accommodation budgets, or spending it on anything other than the delivery of new, culturally appropriate accommodation. The acceleration of the implementation of that report is key and, in particular, the recommendations around planning and land.

I have to say I fundamentally disagree with the Rural Independent Group. We are a rich country and we have many properties. We can meet the needs of our own homeless community, Ukrainian refugees and everybody in between. It is wrong, no matter how politely it is presented, to suggest that providing refuge for people fleeing way is in any way exacerbating our housing crisis. It is not. I urge the Government to take on board the Irish Refugee Council's proposal for the access of holiday homes offer those property owners a licence agreement, 12-month legal security and a small administrative payment. Our getting 5% or 10% of the 60,000 holiday homes would take considerable pressure off hotels, while providing people fleeing Russia's unjustified war in Ukraine with better-quality accommodation. That is something the Government has yet to do and I urge it to do so.

We need a new accommodation strategy for students. The existing strategy had a 20,000-bed shortfall at the end of the plan and the reliance on the private rental sector to meet student accommodation need, given the crisis in that sector, will no longer be possible. More needs to be done.

There is a problem with respect to so-called help to buy, the shared equity loan scheme and Croí Cónaithe. We know from the recent Parliamentary Budget Office report that one third of the help-to-buy scheme went to people who already had a deposit and a sufficient mortgage to buy a home. That is €200 million. According to figures from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, that could have delivered 1,000 new-build social homes. We have 1,300 homeless families. Why would we give €200 million to people who had a deposit and a mortgage, when that money could have been used to build or buy homes for families in emergency accommodation? That makes no sense, regardless of the inflationary impact of those demand-side schemes and the additional debt, particularly, that would be carried by the equity portion of the shared equity scheme.

There are a considerable number of positive solutions in this motion, but if Government does not listen and change tack, we will be here in six, 12 or 24 months, with an ever-deepening housing crisis and a Government using the same speeches to justify the same failed policies, with the same failed results. It is time to raise the roof and change policy.

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