Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The housing crisis is the civil rights issue of our times here in Ireland. There is real agreement on that across the House. We all know that the social consequences of failed housing policy are massive for people from all walks of life. Young professionals and even workers on what would be considered good wages are stuck in their childhood bedrooms into their thirties and forties because they cannot afford to buy or even rent a place of their own. Parents who rent have to contend with the stress of securing a place for their children in a local school or childcare facility while worrying that an eviction notice will uproot them from that support network. Our social welfare and pension system is predicated on a presumption that those who reach pension age will have achieved mortgage-free home ownership but that presumption, unfortunately, no longer holds water. Now we are all seeing in our constituencies pensioners who have paid taxes and contributed to the economy their whole lives but cannot now find anywhere to live if they face eviction from rental properties. Frankly, it is unconscionable.

I commend Deputy Ó Broin and his colleagues for tabling this important motion, which we support. However, we all recognise that this is just the latest in a series of Opposition motions on housing calling on the Minister and his Government to do better. My hope is that one day one of these motions will prompt the Minister to realise that Government policies are not working and that it is time to change. This motion focuses on capital expenditure and that is a crucial point, for sure. The notion that the Department of Housing, Heritage and Local Government is unable to spend its budget is extraordinary. One would almost think that there is no crisis and that everything is fine but we know, of course, that is not the case and all of our constituents tell us it is not the case.

Economic analysis that the Labour Party commissioned shows that at least another €1 billion is needed to be invested by the State in the delivery of housing. Overall, we would allocate over €1.6 billion more in capital to provide for the delivery of social and affordable homes in 2024. It is not just about the allocation of capital, although that is crucial; it is also about urgent adoption of more ambitious targets. We have been calling on the Minister to recognise that the targets set in Housing for All, just two years on, are themselves inadequate. The Minister, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste denied that the targets were inadequate but more recently the Taoiseach quietly admitted in the Dáil, in response to a question I put, that the targets are too low. Indeed, the Government's countermotion refers to a review and refresh of Housing for All targets that is under way and which, we understand, will be produced early in the new year. There is a recognition there that the targets are set too low, there has been too little ambition from the Government and too little recognition of the true need for housing that exists.

Of course, it is not just about the adoption of more ambitious targets; it is also about the adoption of the necessary measures to achieve delivery on targets. Again, the Government has failed on that. We are seeing a lack of delivery of real social and affordable homes for people. This is about a lack of delivery as much as a lack of ambitious targets. The Labour Party, by contrast, has called for the delivery of 1 million homes over ten years, an ambitious target which would mean the building of 50,000 new homes every year.

That is the need that is recognised in the expert opinion of the Government's advisers. Also needed is the provision of 50,000 homes per year through deep retrofit and restoration of vacant and derelict properties. An essential part of any sustainable construction programme must be retrofit and restoration of properties. I will speak more on vacancy momentarily.

As regards the construction workforce planning that is needed, every time we hear from the Government that a plan to deliver that level of housing is unachievable, its reason for that not being achievable is that there is not a sufficient workforce in place. In government, however, it can do things to address that. It can embark on an ambitious and proactive recruitment programme to expand the categories of critical skills for which visas will be provided. It can embark on an enhanced apprenticeship and training programme. It can adopt measures such as the construction skills courses that have been rolled out in facilities such as St. Andrew's Resource Centre in my constituency. There are ways to ensure we have enough workers in place but the reality is the Government does not have the plans to ensure delivery.

I wish to address vacancy. Vacancy and dereliction amount to a national scandal - an insult to all those unable to afford a home. It is obvious to anyone who walks through an urban centre that there are boarded-up houses that could become homes for those who so desperately need them, with 13,000 people on the homelessness list. The Labour Party has launched a national campaign to tackle vacancy and dereliction, seeking to use existing mechanisms and calling on members of the public to log empty sites near them on the vacant and derelict sites registers maintained by local authorities. We are not seeing any sort of commensurate approach by the Government, however, to tackle vacancy and dereliction. We need to see much more proactive policies adopted. Properties which are left vacant for prolonged periods should be subject to compulsory purchase and local authorities need to be resourced adequately to do so. I heard recently from my colleague, Councillor Darragh Moriarty, who is a member of Dublin City Council, that rather than taking that sort of proactive approach, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is reducing the subvention to Dublin City Council for the conversion of voids into homes. We are hearing that is happening. I know the Minister has denied it but we are hearing this on the ground. We have heard of an apparent decision to abandon one of the few saving graces of recent housing plans, namely, a mechanism to strip planning permission from developers who sit on vacant land that could be used for homes. These are the sorts of measures that could be used to crack down on vacancy but we are not seeing them being brought in. We are not seeing any attempt to adopt a use-it-or-lose-it approach to ensure people are incentivised to move on planning permissions that have been granted, rather than sitting on them and speculating further.

We are also seeing a lack of action from the Government on renters' rights. In anticipation of this debate, I looked at properties in my constituency on daft.ie. I know colleagues did the same. It is impossible to find a two-bedroom home, even a very small one, for less than €1,300 per month. Within hours, a new listing will have thousands of views. We have become almost desensitised to this because we are so used to the absurd sight of queues for house viewings for rentals. We know of people who are bidding, offering more and more in rent because they simply cannot afford a home of their own.

This crisis is due to market failure. The question remains as to why the Government is addicted to always returning to the private market and hands-off regulation to solve a crisis that was caused by market failure. Almost half of all properties in my constituency of Dublin Bay South are rented on the private market. There is a very high proportion of renters in the constituency yet people cannot find homes to rent. They are simply not available in any affordable sense. During the pandemic, however, we saw the impact a temporary no-fault eviction ban can have on preventing homelessness. In 2021, the Labour Party proposed a strong renters’ rights Bill, namely, the Residential Tenancies (Tenants' Rights) Bill, that would provide real protections for those in rented homes and end no-fault evictions. It is not a radical proposition. In most European countries, it is forbidden to kick a good tenant out of their home and this sort of eviction ban is standard. I hope the Minister will realise the need to put a measure like this back into place, even for this winter. We are not hearing anything from the Government about what it is proposing to do for those facing eviction and families and children facing homelessness this winter. That is a serious issue. We need to move into a space where examining policies around basic renters' rights protections is something the Government will take on, rather than it always being contained in Opposition motions.

Finally, I will refer to housing legislation put forward by the Labour Party some years ago. The Minister will be aware that in 2017 the Dáil voted in support of Labour’s Housing (Homeless Families) Bill, which would create a statutory obligation to prevent families entering homelessness. It progressed to Second Stage, with support from Fianna Fáil at the time, I should add. I have written to the Cathaoirleach of the housing committee, seeking leave to commence Committee Stage of the Bill. I have also written to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien. I remind him of the need to progress that legislation. It is a simple and straightforward Bill that does not require extensive review and should not take long to implement. It is supported by NGOs, including organisations working to address homelessness. The Bill would simply give recognition to the rights of children in homelessness or at risk of entering homelessness. It would oblige the State to have regard to those rights when homelessness is going to touch the life of a family. I appeal to the Minister to at least take on that Bill and the measure that is perhaps the most obvious means at his disposal to address the risk of children entering homelessness. We are all agreed that is the sharpest end of the housing crisis. At the start of my contribution, I referred to the many different people from various walks of life who are affected by the housing crisis but children in homelessness - the thousands of children who have to do homework in hotel rooms, have nowhere to bring friends back to play, no gardens and nowhere they can call their own - are the sharp end. That is what this motion and all of us speaking in favour of it are most keen to address tonight.

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