Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegates for their presentations. I read Dr. Healy's opening statement, as I was slightly delayed at a meeting held prior to this one. I welcome our friends from St. Michael's Estate, whom I have met on a couple of occasions with my colleague, Senator Catherine Ardagh. I will refer specifically to them.

I want to ask about the cost rental model. It has been outlined clearly how it would work. What is the view on the policy response to it? There is no question, but it is part of the solution. As my colleague, Senator Grace O'Sullivan said, we are in the middle of a housing crisis, as we have known for a number of years. There are 3,008 ha of zoned, serviced land, owned by the State, including St. Michael's Estate. I have visited many other such sites, for example, on Oscar Traynor Road, the glass bottle site and O'Devanney Gardens where work on only 58 home has been started, although 600 families lived there previously. We need to raise the level of ambition and get some momentum behind the building programme.

What would the delegates like to see happen if they were in charge? We have heard about the cost rental model and that there will be a pilot scheme, but it has not yet started. We are no further down the line four or five years on. The reason people buy instead of renting is security. It is as simple as that. That is why people enter into lifetime debt and long mortgages if they can. It is because they at least feel they own it and cannot be turfed out. We must break that mindset and ensure the cost of renting is reasonable and that there is security of tenure. We see people in the private rental market becoming homeless because it is not secure. That is why people aspire to buy. If Dr. Healy and his colleagues were in charge, how quickly would they roll out this model?

To follow on from Senator Grace O'Sullivan’s comment, can existing stock be retrofitted and have the model applied to it? We have discussed the matter as a committee. I visited a number of sites in Dublin Central the week before last on which there were hundreds of boarded up units that were listed for refurbishment by the city council. They are not included in void lists because they are due for regeneration. I was in a place on Constitution Hill where there were three generations of a family living in a two-bedroom flat, yet on the first floor of the building, there were 12 flats boarded up. People say they would do them up themselves if they were given the tools. We are caught up in regulation and over-complicating the delivery of housing. Given the hundreds of units I saw in one constituency alone that were boarded up, could they be retrofitted to have such a system rolled out?

I thank Ms Comerford for her presentation and note that Deputy Joan Collins is present. At the group's request, a number of us wrote recently to the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, to seek a meeting with him. We have not yet had a response, but he agreed verbally to have a meeting. St. Michael's Estate should be the first because we need to show that redevelopment and regeneration are happening somewhere because they are not happening in any of the flagship developments, for want of a better phrase, such as O'Devanney Gardens. We made a call on a cross-party basis for funding for public housing on that land. We were very clear about it and Fianna Fáil supports it. We want to make sure that after years of disappointment and the project being delayed time after time, we will push for the development of St. Michael's Estate. I commend the group's members for the work they are doing. With Deputy Joan Collins and others, I hope we can meet the Minister next week. Although the Dáil is due to rise for the summer, we will still be around and want to push for funding for St. Michael’s Estate in the budget which must be a housing budget. It will be my focus and that of my party to ensure it will deliver in that regard. Since we met previously, have the members had any contact with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government on the redevelopment plans for St. Michael's Estate?