Ms Mary Rose Burke:

We believe that the most immediate threat to upward pressure on wage costs in Dublin comes from inflation, the cost of accommodation and the lack of residential capacity in high demand areas. This is the most egregious example of under-investment in Dublin's infrastructure, including in the housing sector. We are experiencing a real accommodation crisis, with the highest ever number of households on the social housing waiting lists and the highest number of households reliant on social housing supports such as the housing assistance payment, HAP, and rent supplement. Despite that Dublin has the greatest housing need in the country it received the lowest capital investment in housing from central government in the period from 2009 to 2016. We believe there are a number of issues that need to be considered in addressing the issue. We need a commitment to density in high demand areas. Dublin Chamber of Commerce has long been an advocate for the economic, social and environmental benefits of greater urban density. We also need market stability. Every time the Government signals to the market that it is looking at changing building regulations there is a drop in activity levels. We need a period of time to adjust to new regulations, particularly in the apartment sector. We need to build more social housing. We believe that social housing provision should shift from the counterproductive policies of private home acquisition and rental support to the construction of purpose built social and affordable housing.

Budget 2018 committed to the provision of almost 6,000 new social housing units next year but that is an increase of only 31 on the number committed to last year. At the same time, more money is being put into the housing assistance programme. We believe this is exacerbating the problem and that this money would be better spent in the direct build of new social housing. We also need to look at initiatives to better manage vacant homes. On the rainy day fund, we believe it should be available to smooth out the stop and start in capital investment, including in the build of social housing. We need a sustained programme of capital investment and the rainy day fund should be available to maintain the base level of construction that is needed in housing and other infrastructure and to prevent the stop-go type of investment that we have seen in the past.