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

Setting aside any questioning of the Minister's motives or agendas around builders, and I do not believe that he is in any way acting as a representative of those sectors, the measure is not working on its own terms. That is the point. Alternatively, the money could be put where it could contribute to resolving a disastrous situation. This is the essence. Any benefit to the buyer is being wiped out by the spectacular growth in property prices. The beneficiary of those increases in prices are builders and developers. There is absolutely no question that they are the beneficiaries and are making money out of this.

As prices go up, arguably an incentive such as this or assistance for the home buyer is also encouraging them to get into an unsustainable market. Let us remember what happened the last time. People are being encouraged to buy houses at unsustainable prices where mortgages are gargantuan and the burden they will carry will be disastrous if further done the line we have another crash. From any point of view, it seems that this is not working. Contrast this with where the funding could be diverted. This situation is not just about this particular incentive. The package of this scheme, involving the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, home building finance Ireland, HBFI, leasing, and the housing assistance payment, HAP, are all reliant on the private sector and the market to deliver. I have just done a quick tot and of the €1.83 billion in the budget, about €1 billion is going to the market in various ways to try to get the market to solve the problem. This is a disastrous strategy.

The Minister said that in putting an alternative, our proposal is that only the State should build public housing. Deputy Burton implied that some of us are arguing for that, but that is not what we are arguing. We do, however, argue that there needs to be seismic shift back in that direction. The story of the past 25 or 30 years was that the proportion of housing built by the State has dropped to negligible levels. If, as Deputy Burton has rightly said, some 30% of people cannot purchase housing at market prices through their own resources, what does this mean? It means the State should provide 30% of the housing. There is no plan for that in what the Minister is doing but it is what we should be aiming at. This is what the State used to do back in the 1930s, the 1940s and the 1950s. The State built that proportion of the housing stock. The vast majority of the moneys being allocated by the Minister to resolve the problem in one scheme or another are going to the market to try to encourage and incentivise it. I accept that the Government in Rebuilding Ireland has somewhat and in a small way shifted, although mostly at the level of rhetoric, to saying that Ireland needs public housing. Rebuilding Ireland is still relying overwhelmingly on the market and I do not believe it can deliver. In so far as it may increase supply, it is going to do so at unaffordable prices.

We need a dramatic shift in where the State puts its resources. Let the market look after the market. People who want to purchase their own homes, and I accept that it is the majority, are not able to purchase now because the prices in the market have gone out of control. They would also benefit. I underline this point, particularly given the offensive rhetoric from the Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar - not from the Minister for Finance in fairness - about "free housing". The implication was that social housing is free. Social housing is not free. People pay rent according to their income. The point is that a person can get a house and pay according to his or her ability. The Taoiseach's comments about "free housing" suggest that those people who want council housing or who advocate for social housing are advocating free housing, as against people who pay for their housing. That is absolutely offensive. It indicates a certain mindset, which needs to shift. I do not believe that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe shares that mindset, but I believe that he shares the ideological blinkers that have been put on governments because of the shift towards neoliberal thinking that has dominated for the past 25 to 30 years. I urge the Minister for Finance to take off those blinkers and recognise that the only way Ireland can provide affordable housing is to get back up to 30% of housing being built directly by the State. This would also stabilise, or bring down, house prices in the private market.

If the Government wants to bring prices down for the ordinary home buyer, it should build more council houses. That is how it could stabilise the market. When we give more and more incentives to developers to solve the problem, they will just use them, manipulate them and profiteer from them. They will land hoard and release supply only when it suits them and they can make money. They will stop the supply when they think it does not suit and when they cannot make enough money. This is our point. The signs are on it when we consider the experience of the past ten years, or even what has happened in the past year or two. This is what is happening. The Minister should consider taking on board the points we are making.