Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: notes that:

— the cost of buying a home has increased by more than 25 per cent since this Government came into office;

— it now costs almost €330,000 on average to buy a home, an increase of more than €66,000 since 2020 and €90,000 since 2017;

— the median income for first-time buyers of new homes is now more than €90,000 and more than €103,000 in Dublin;

— there are more than 520,000 adults living in their childhood bedrooms, a 14 per cent rise since 2016, and a 19 per cent increase since Fine Gael took office in 2011;

— the rate of home ownership is continuing to decline and is at a 30-year low;

— the share of 25-34 year-olds who own their own home more than halved between 2004 and 2019, falling from 60 per cent to just 27 per cent; and

— rent prices are at record highs, having more than doubled in a decade and having increased by more than 20 per cent since this Government took office;

acknowledges that:

— a lack of affordable housing is forcing adults to live at home, which can have a negative impact on mental health, self-esteem, employment prospects, the ability to form and maintain relationships and connection to communities;

— a lack of affordable housing is having a negative impact on the economy, resulting in staffing shortages across the public and private sectors;

— these staffing shortages are particularly acute when it comes to teachers, nurses, Gardaí and other important public sector workers in urban areas; and

— a lack of affordable housing is forcing students to defer college places or change third-level education plans;

further notes that:

— zero affordable purchase homes were delivered in 2020;

— zero affordable purchase homes were delivered in 2021;

— just 323 affordable purchase homes were delivered in 2022;

— the Government missed its target for the delivery of affordable purchase and Cost Rental homes by 70 per cent in 2022;

— the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage failed to spend €1 billion of his capital budget between 2020 and 2022; and

— adult homelessness has increased by more than 40 per cent since this Government took office and child homelessness is up by 44 per cent; and

calls on the Government to:

— publish figures for the delivery of affordable homes in 2023;

— increase the target for affordable purchase and Cost Rental homes to 10,000 homes per year;

— introduce a punitive tax on vacancy;

— reinstate the ban on no-fault evictions to protect renters from homelessness; and

— stop investing public money in the delivery of private rental-only developments that are unaffordable to rent and unavailable to buy.

There are 12,847 people who are living in homeless emergency accommodation; 12,847 people. Every single person contained in that figure is an individual with their own dreams and their own aspirations. It is individuals with hopes for the future who never thought they would be without a home. These are 12,847 individuals, each with their own story to tell. I will speak shortly about one of these people and their recent experience of being homeless.

Within that figure of 12,847 people, 181 are pensioners; 181. Can any of us imagine what it would be like when we are older, or when we retire, to be without a home? Could any of us imagine what it be like if our parents were in that situation or for anyone in that stage of life to be without a home? There are 3,829 children who are growing up without a home; 3,829. The highest number of people in the history of this country are living in homeless emergency accommodation. Every month, a new record on that is set. Yet somehow, the Government thinks its housing strategy is working and that more of the same is somehow going to work and that it is somehow acceptable. It simply is not.

There are more than 500,000 adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are still living in their childhood bedrooms, while many more are paying extortionate rents. Home ownership under this Government is at its lowest level in more than 50 years. At the same time as record levels of homelessness, record rent levels, record levels of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s living in their childhood bedrooms, there is actually record levels of underspending in the housing budget under this Government. Hundreds of millions of euro has been allocated to housing. That could and should have been used to build housing to lift people out of homelessness and out of the threat of homelessness, but it was left unspent. Hundreds of millions of euro was returned to the Exchequer after money was carried over into this year's budget from last year, because the maximum amount was carried over. Hundreds of millions of euro was actually returned the Exchequer unspent when it should have been spent to help lift people out of this housing disaster. How is it possible in the middle of a housing disaster that such a high level of money could be returned to the Exchequer because it was unspent?

Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are miserably failing to get to grips with this housing crisis, which is of their own making. This is having devastating consequences for people all over Ireland. We need change. The motion that we in the Social Democrats are putting forward contains a number of practical steps that, if implemented now by the Government, would help bring housing solutions to thousands of people who are struggling to find an affordable place to live. In this motion we are calling for the Government to build 10,000 affordable purchase and affordable rental homes per year, to bring in a tax on vacancy that actually has teeth, that is effective and strong, and to immediately reinstate the ban on no-fault evictions.

Let us be very clear; the lifting of the eviction ban has been nothing short of a disaster. There are record levels of people who are homeless as a result. It is the highest number in the history of the State. Homelessness has been rising for 18 out of the past 19 months. The only month in which it fell during that time was at the tail end of the eviction ban when it was starting to work. The Government’s decision to lift the eviction ban has caused the number of people becoming homeless to rise again. Some 859 people have become homeless since the eviction ban was lifted and 357 of them are children. There has been a 7% increase in homelessness in the few months since the eviction ban was lifted and a 10% increase in the number of children who are homeless since the eviction ban was lifted. A new record level of homelessness has been set for 12 out of the 13 last months. The ESRI report, which was published this week, provides evidence of why we need the eviction ban to be reinstated. It shows that renters in new tenancies are paying more than €200 per month per tenancy than existing renters. It shows that rent regulation measures are not working effectively. It shows that when renters are evicted and receive a notice to quit, they are replaced with new renters and many landlords in those situations, although not all, are circumventing the rent regulation rules and using those evictions to get new renters at higher rents. The ESRI report has solid, hard evidence of that and shows that in order to protect renters we need to reinstate the no-fault ban on evictions. That would prevent renters who pay their rent from being evicted.

It is worth saying that all that would bring us in line with most European countries where renters who pay their rent are not subject to eviction. That is the norm in most European countries. The human cost of the housing disaster cannot be overstated. The impact on the more than 500,000 people who are still living in their childhood bedrooms is huge. It has impacts on mental health, wellbeing, independence, family formation and relationships. These are the impacts of the housing disaster. Talk to any school principal and they will tell you they can spend months trying to fill a teaching post, only for it then to fall at the last hurdle because the person they have recruited cannot take up the post because they cannot find somewhere affordable to live. One of the biggest issues facing local authorities now is their ability to fill the posts and recruit staff, especially in urban areas. We are seeing this in disability services, where children can be waiting for years just to get an assessment. We are seeing difficulty in filling posts because of the housing disaster. Effectively, we are seeing a hollowing out of areas, especially urban areas, where people in critical roles such as teachers, gardaí, disability services, local authority staff and lots of other sectors simply cannot afford to live there and are being pushed out. If you look at where the Government’s increases to the housing supply are coming from, many of them are build-to-rent schemes. These are rental-only, and people do not have the option to buy or the option of home ownership.

I want to talk about an issue I raised with the Minister earlier today, which is the experience of one homeless person. There are more than 12,000 people who are living in emergency accommodation, but I will raise the recent experience of one of them. I know this is not representative of all people who are living in homeless emergency accommodation. However, there are other people who are in privately run homeless emergency accommodation and who have had similar experiences. I have been raising this issue with the Minister consistently for the last number of years. While conditions are not perfect in NGO or not-for-profit homeless emergency accommodation, where staff are actually trained and where there are proper standards in place, these types of instances do not arise. I really wish the Minister would actually act on this. I do not raise these as individual instances.

I raise them because they show the problem in the area.

On 2 August, a woman named Mairéad was physically assaulted by a member of staff in a privately run hostel for homeless people. While the hostel is run by a private company, it is funded with public money. The incident, which I have seen on video, is harrowing and it clearly shows the male member of staff telling Mairéad that she is a piece of junk, before telling her that he will crush her and hit her. The staff member then forcefully knocked Mairéad to the ground. I cannot imagine what it would like to be physically attacked in the place where you are meant to be safe and in the place where you are sleeping; a place funded through public money to provide emergency accommodation. People who are homeless should get the support and shelter they need and be treated with humanity. Instead, we are seeing some appalling treatment, especially in homeless accommodation run by private companies. We have had increased instances of reports of assaults, threats and violence against people who have lost their home from individuals working for these private companies. In recent years, emergency homeless accommodation has been turned into a lucrative profit-making business for some individuals who have simply no regard for the welfare of vulnerable homeless people. I really want the Minister to start acting on this.

It appears that after this happened, no follow-up supports were offered to Mairéad. She was forced to sleep on the streets before being placed in a night-time only accommodation in a hostel where it transpired that only herself and her partner were subject to the night-time only rules. Everyone else was able to access the accommodation during the day. The discriminatory treatment of Mairéad resulted in her sleeping on the streets again for weeks more, before being provided with emergency only in the last couple of days. A woman who was physically assaulted on 2 August has had to spend most of the time since on the streets.

If there has been any investigation into this by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, it certainly has not published it, and neither has it shown any evidence of learnings or action being taken since. The case has received media coverage in recent weeks and it has been raised in Dublin City Council with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. This is what has happened to one person. I am not saying it is representative of what happens to all but I have reports of other instances of physical attacks by people working for private companies funded by the Government to provide homeless emergency accommodation.

I want to read for the Minister just a few testimonies from some people about their experiences of the housing crisis. The first is: I am a young professional working in a position for four years and 50% of my income goes on rent. I have no hope of building up savings. Another person says: "I can't afford to do anything but pay my rent. My partner and I both work and have no kids, yet we can't afford food sometimes." Another person says: "I commute two hours to and from college every day. I spend more time on the bus than in lectures." Another says: "I left the country in 2020. I have more disposable income and a much better quality of life." Another person says: "My husband and I are in our 30s and can't start a family yet because we are stuck sharing an apartment." Another person says: "It is very depressing knowing I'll probably never get my own house. I am 39 and have been on the housing list for six years. It feels hopeless." Another person says: "I am a college lecturer who's been living with my parents for almost three years now." The final person says: "I'm 32. My rent is so expensive that I have no hope of buying a house in Ireland. I am looking at emigrating. Not only is rent extortionate but there is also no security. Landlords are kicking people out every couple of years."

In the motion we have tabled today, we have a number of solutions that, if implemented, would help people in the housing disaster they are in now. I implore the Government to listen to them and to take them on board; to admit that ending the no-fault eviction ban was a mistake that it has led to record levels of homelessness. It is going up month after month. The Minister should admit that his strategies have not worked. We need action now to get homelessness down. We know that most people who become homeless had their last stable home in the private rented sector. Were we to reduce the flow of people into homelessness from the private rented rent sector, we would reduce the number of people becoming homeless and would reduce the number of people like Mairéad who have had such an utterly unacceptable and traumatic experience at the hands of publicly funded emergency accommodation run by a private company.

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